Joseph F. Mansfield, v. Deborah Ann Wills Mansfield

This appeal involves a divorce that ended a brief, unhappy marriage. Both the husband and the wife sought a divorce in the Chancery Court for Williamson County. The trial court, sitting without a jury, declared the parties divorced and directed the husband to pay certain pre-divorce debts and to continue making pendente lite support payments until the wife received her share of the increase in the parties’ net worth during the marriage. The trial court later ordered the husband to pay the wife an additional $4,405 for the legal expenses she incurred to compel compliance with her discovery requests. The husband insists on this appeal that the trial court should not have required him to assume the debts the wife incurred prior to the divorce or to pay the wife’s discovery-related legal expenses. We have determined that the evidence supports the trial court’s decision on both issues and, therefore, affirm the judgment