APPEALS – RULE 5A-18 AND -20 FAILURES – TRIAL JUDGES’ DISCRETION IN E.D. – APPELLATE FEES. Two immigrants from India ended their nine-year marriage in the Loudoun County Circuit Court, presenting what seems to be a pretty simple case involving small amounts of money, but the trial judge took note that the wife, who presented a picture of low credibility, had withdrawn $61,000 from bank accounts within a month after separation. The Court of Appeals in this case, Parikh v. Parikh, unpublished, 26 VLW 105 (6/21/11), said that 22 of the wife’s 35 assignments of error had not been preserved at trial as required by Lee v. Lee, 12 Va. App. 512, ___ S.E.2d ___ (1991), and the rest of them apparently ran afoul of Rule 5A:20 by being unsupported by sufficient argument and citations. Anything that was left the Court found reason to affirm because the trial judge is allowed considerable discretion, to which appellate courts should defer, when equitable distribution orders are reviewed. While wife had tried to introduce foreign records on some property in India that her husband supposedly transferred to his brother, she had no evidence of value and no authentications of the records as required by Virginia Code §8.01-390. The Court made a fee award for appellate representation to the husband and remanded to determine its amount.
