Buried Treasure

           One of the more difficult concepts to get some divorce clients to grasp is that facts need to be proven before the Court can act upon them. Merely believing, thinking, or suspecting that certain things are true just won't do. Where is the evidence? How can we establish the facts? These questions are constantly present when preparing for trial.

       Every divorce judge and lawyer has heard this lament: "I know he/she is hiding money somewhere." But saying it just doesn't make it so. Sometimes, forensic accounting can track down unaccounted-for funds, and sometimes a document shows up that provides the necessary proof. But, most often the client's conviction that he/she is being cheated just cannot be established with sufficient certainty to provide any sort of remedy to the wronged spouse.

            Hiding assets can have very serious consequences if proof is provided. Ohio has a statute that provides: "If a spouse has substantially and willfully failed to disclose marital property" the court can award the injured spouse a "greater award of marital property" up to three times the value of the non-disclosed property.

            But, no proof, no nothing!

While I was on the bench, I heard a contested divorce trial involving a well-to-do family. Husband and Wife had been married for well over thirty years and had two grown sons. Husband was an entrepreneur and had established a very successful business. Wife had never worked outside of her home. Husband handled all the family finances.

In the course of the case, Husband's business had been valued and wife was awarded half of that value, along with half of all the other assets. She also received a substantial amount of spousal support

            However, throughout the trial, Wife, through her lawyer, tried to convince me that there was a large amount of cash or some other assets which Husband had not revealed. Wife testified that Husband was very secretive about money, and she was excluded from any access to the marital funds. She claimed he had lied, cheated, and deceived her in every way possible, therefore, there had to be something he was hiding from her and her lawyer. But, I was presented with no evidence whatsoever from which I could conclude, on a factual basis, that any assets had been concealed.

            The parties owned two residences, and had lived separately for several years. Wife lived in the substantial home in an upscale suburb of Columbus, while Husband, having retired, spent his time in the deluxe beach home in Palm Beach, Florida, where he golfed and fished, and entertained a series of young ladies. The parties agreed that she would have the "big house" and he would have the Florida retreat.

When I wrote my decision, I noted the conflict over the allegation of concealed assets, but found that the evidence compelled a finding that all the assets were accounted for. The case ended on that note – almost.

One afternoon, Wife's lawyer called me. "I have a story to tell you," he said. He proceeded to relate the following tale:

A couple of years after the divorce was final, Husband suffered a series of heart attacks and was on his death bed when he summoned the parties' sons to his side. "Boys," he told them, "when I am gone, before you sell the beach house, step off twelve paces due south from the big palm tree by the pool. Dig there." Shortly thereafter, he passed away. The sons went together to the beach house, found a shovel, and dug as instructed.

About three feet down in the sandy soil they found a very heavy metal strong box. Breaking it open, they discovered that it was full of gold coins and small gold bars. The appraisal came back well over a half a million dollars. Husband's will left everything to his sons. The boys gave the gold to their mother, and her suspicions were finally vindicated.

Sometimes there really is a buried treasure.

Fuller Brush Man!

            I love pets. On my first birthday, Dad brought home a toy fox terrier mix. We named her Penny and she was my friend until she went to dog heaven while I was a freshman in college 17 years later. Donna and I found a cat when we had been married just a couple of weeks; we brought her home, named her Sooty, and have never been without at least one cat ever since. Right now, we have two. They are an important part of our family and we love them. So the events I am about to recount still haunt me to this day.

            Donna and I had been married less than a year and we were both undergrads at The Ohio State University. I looked for some kind of part-time job I could do to scratch up a little spending money. Answering a help wanted ad, I found myself taking a job as a Fuller Brush Man. After a couple hours of training, I went to work.

            For those of you who are of a different generation, door-to-door sales were commonplace when I was growing up and well into the 60's and early 70's.. We got our eggs, milk, and bread delivered to our homes. Salesmen called on housewives, selling everything from vacuum cleaners and pots and pans to encyclopedias. The Fuller Brush Man was a familiar figure, who came to the door to sell brushes (of course), brooms, and other grooming and household cleaning supplies.

            My assigned territory was in Clintonville. We were paid solely on commission – 15% of our sales. Carrying my 26 pound sample case, I walked from door to door for a few hours a couple afternoons a week when I didn't have class. I would walk up to a door, knock (we were trained not to use the doorbell), and, when the woman of the house came to the door, I would say "Fuller Brush Man" and hand her the free item we were giving away at that time, usually a vegetable brush, letter opener, or similar "door opener." About half of the time, I was invited into the house, to open my sample case and display the "featured products" of the month. If I got an order, I would deliver the merchandise the next week and collect the amount due.

            How times have changed. Today, very few people would so casually let a stranger into their home. And, as women have entered the work force in the last 40 years, most homes are empty in the afternoons. Of course, "big box" stores and online shopping drove the very last nails in the coffin of door-to-door sales.

            But, back in 1966, I was able to earn a modest but useful amount selling. The biggest day I ever had, I was walking up Indianola Avenue past a veterinary clinic, when a woman in a lab coat came running out, hollering, "Are you the Fuller Brush Man?" "Yes," I responded. She went on, "We have been looking for you. We need push brooms for the kennels. Can we order six?"

            Six push brooms! One of the highest priced items in the Fuller line! I wrote up the order and turned it in at the office. That week I got the biggest commission check ever. I think it was about $20.00, no small sum at the time.

            But, I had no idea that my last day as a Fuller Brush Man was fast approaching. That horrible day I knocked on the door of the large house on East North Broadway. A woman answered it, and invited me in, sample case in hand, almost before I got my greeting out. As I stepped into her front hall, a dark blur of fur shot toward me. Her dog, a spaniel sized long-hair, attacked, snarling and baring his teeth. Instinct seized me and I swung the sample case, slamming it into the side of the beast's head.

            My attacker fell over, its legs churning wildly, its eyes rolling back in its head. My hostess screamed, "You killed my dog! You killed my dog!!" "Lady," I replied, "not before he tried to rip off my leg!" I fled the house, found where I had parked my 1959 Volkswagen bug, drove directly to the Fuller office, turned in my sample case. "I quit!" were my last words as a Fuller Brush Man.

            I have thought about that poor dog many times. I sincerely hope that it recovered from my sample case assault. I try to convince myself that I was acting in self-defense and really had no other choice. But, I still feel pretty bad about the whole thing.

In re: T.R. – Part 4

           On August 27, 1990, I arrived at home about 9:30 in the evening from a Columbus Clippers baseball game. A Franklin County Sheriff's cruiser was parked in front of our house.

            Earlier that day, after several days of trial, I had written and distributed my decision in the custody case of Tessa Reams. The trial had gone as most custody cases proceeded. The focus was on which of the claimants for the role of custodian was most likely to provide for the best interests of the child. Both Richard Reams and Beverly Seymour had testified, as did several other relatives and friends. The Guardian ad Litem made his recommendation.

            In my decision, I noted that Ms. Seymour had acted in a manner not conducive to the child's best interest by attempting to exploit the situation and to gain publicity for her position, which had led to the need for me to close the courtroom proceedings to the public and issue a gag order. Also highly relevant was my determination that Mr. Reams was far more likely to support a relationship between Tessa and Beverly, while Beverly had made it clear that her animus toward Richard would negatively impact his relationship with the child.

            At the end, I decided to grant custody of Tessa to Richard, her father figure, and to permit Beverly to have regular visitation with the child.

            I asked the deputy what he was doing there. What he told me nearly stopped my heart: Beverly Seymour had shot and killed Richard Reams and she was being sought by the police. Until she was apprehended, the Sheriff had determined to keep an eye on me and my family. Shortly thereafter, we learned that Beverly was in custody.

            News reports indicated that, after receiving a copy of my decision from his lawyer, Richard had traveled to Beverly's home in Ashville, Ohio, to obtain possession of Tessa. After some altercation, Beverly produced a pistol and shot and killed Richard. Eventually, Beverly was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

            Following another brief hearing, I granted custody of Tessa to Mr. Reams' mother, who raised her away from Central Ohio. Today, Tessa Reams is 30-years-old.

* * * * *

 The Columbus Dispatch and its publisher did not forgive my audacity in defending against the lawsuit over the closure and gag orders. I quickly learned that a vendetta was in the offing when an editorial in the Dispatch blamed me for the murder of Richard Reams. The editorial asserted that, had Beverly been permitted to air her case in public, she would not have been so angry and probably would not have confronted and murdered Mr. Reams.

That was just the beginning. Over the next four years prior to my campaign for re-election, the newspaper hammered me over every decision I made. In an article in American Journalism Review, published in June, 2000, author John Widklein recounted the history of the management of the Dispatch by the Wolfe family, and the attitude of the Dispatch toward anyone who crossed them. He wrote:

The family could also be tough on public figures who crossed them. Early in the '90s, Judge Ronald L. Solove angered the Wolfes by barring reporters from his juvenile court. The paper appealed the decision, but lost. To gloat, Solove put up a computer-generated banner in his office that read, "Who's afraid of the big bad Wolfe?"--in this case, meaning John F. That was enough. With editorials and a cascade of nit-picking stories, the paper helped bring about Solove's defeat in the next election.

            The final blow to my re-election chances was my handling of a case against a child of 16 who, with her mother, had been involved in the beating death of a woman as a result of a drug deal gone bad. The case came before me, just a few weeks before the election scheduled for November 1994, to determine if the child should be tried as an adult. Having listened to testimony which convinced me that the child essentially had been compelled to participate by her mother, that she had no previous juvenile record, and that she stood a good chance of being rehabilitated in the juvenile court system, I decided that she would remain under the jurisdiction of the Franklin County Juvenile Court.

            After the hearing, I called the child's defense counsel aside and told him that the case would surely cost me the election, and that I expected him to support my family in the future. We both had a hardy laugh. Of course, the Dispatch excoriated me over the outcome of the case. A few weeks later, the election was lost, my career as a judge was over, and, on January 5, 1995, I entered into the private practice of Family Law.

            Although In re: T.R. changed my life, it certainly did so for the better. The last 20 years of private practice have been the best of my professional career, providing me with the opportunity to work with wonderful people and to enjoy the kind of professional freedom denied to judges. And, of course, the economic benefits have been rewarding as well. Every year when I review and sign my tax returns, I whisper a quiet "thank you" to the Wolfe family and the career guidance they provided.

            And, I did the right thing.

In re: T.R. – Part 3

            The Ohio Supreme Court's opinion in In re: T.R. was a landmark decision defining the intersection of the rights of free speech and of freedom of the press with the potential of harm to an innocent child.

I had issued two orders that were under review by the Supreme Court. The first was a "gag order" restricting the parties involved in the litigation from "disseminating any information about this pending cause or about the minor child Tessa Reams to any and all persons * * * including, but not limited to, representatives of both the broadcast and print media; and * * * from appearing on any and all radio and television broadcasts regarding these causes or the minor child herein; and * * * from otherwise providing any information regarding these causes or said child either directly or indirectly in any fashion whatsoever.”

The second order provided that “the trial and all other proceedings in this matter shall be closed to all news media and members of the public, except parties, witnesses * * *, counsel, and necessary court personnel. * * *” I also restricted access to the case file to the same individuals. This came to be described as the "closure order."

The Supreme Court noted that I had conducted hearings before issuing each order to determine whether the potential harm to the child outweighed the public's right to open judicial proceedings and free speech. Based on the testimony I had heard, I believe that the danger that press access presented to Tessa was significant and that she deserved to be protected by the court. The Supreme Court agreed.

In Ohio, the "law" of any Supreme Court decision is presented in a paragraph, or several paragraphs, called the "Syllabus" of the case. The bulk of the opinion of the Court is an explanation of the facts and the legal reasoning behind the rule stated in the Syllabus. The most significant part of the Syllabus in In re: T.R. was the third paragraph:

3. Proceedings in juvenile court to determine if a child is abused, neglected, or dependent, or to determine custody of a minor child, are neither presumptively open nor presumptively closed to the public. The juvenile court may restrict public access to these proceedings pursuant to Juv.R. 27 and R.C. 2151.35 if the court finds, after hearing evidence and argument on the issue, (1) that there exists a reasonable and substantial basis for believing that public access could harm the child or endanger the fairness of the adjudication, and (2) the potential for harm outweighs the benefits of public access.

            The Court went on to state that, given the facts presented at the hearings I had conducted, it was clearly established that the potential harm to Tessa justified the gag and closure orders. We had beaten the powerful Columbus Dispatch and the publisher John W. Wolfe in the Supreme Court of Ohio.

            When we got the word that we had won, some members of the Domestic Court staff produced a banner that read "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolfe" and hung it behind my desk. I later learned that a Dispatch reporter had told John Wolfe personally about this and that Mr. Wolfe was livid that I would show such disrespect to one of the most powerful men in Ohio. Although I firmly believed that we had done the right thing for Tessa Reams and for children in Ohio in general, I was about to pay a personal price for winning the case.

            Finally, after over five years of delay caused by the various appeals, we proceeded to try the case for custody of Tessa.