Filed 3/19/18 Marriage of Powers CA3
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.



IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT
(Placer)





In re the Marriage of KELLEY and BRUCE RODNEY POWERS, JR.
C080319

(Super. Ct. No. SDR 0040027)

KELLEY JAYE WIDRIN,

Respondent,

v.

BRUCE RODNEY POWERS, JR.,

Appellant.



Kelley Jaye Widrin petitioned for the dissolution of her marriage to Bruce Rodney Powers, Jr., in January 2012. The trial court entered a judgment on reserved issues in August 2015 (the parties describe it as also being a judgment of dissolution, although box 4a on the form is not checked), and Powers filed a timely notice of appeal. Briefing was finally completed in October 2017.
Powers lists seven general headings in the portion of his brief formally titled “Legal Discussion,” but the entirety of his brief is admixed with various legal arguments. We focus only on the subjects of his headings, in which he contends (1) the trial court did not properly calculate the community interest in a nonsalary compensation benefit called an “RSU”; (2) he did not breach a fiduciary duty to Widrin in unilaterally selling stock units that had fully vested into shares, in violation of a restraining order; (3) the adequacy of his accounting for these sales did not warrant an award of legal fees for the cost of litigating the issue; (4) the community was not entitled to reimbursement for the costs of obtaining his 2012 master’s degree in business (MBA); (5)(a) Widrin breached her fiduciary duty to him in failing to account for a “secret” credit card; (b) the trial court erred in only denying Epstein credit for payment of interest on the credit account, as it should have ordered community reimbursement of the interest; (c) the trial court erred in resolving the overall competing claims for Epstein credits; (6) the amount of spousal support was an abuse of discretion; and (7) the overall award of costs and legal fees was improper. We shall affirm the judgment with the exception of reducing the reimbursement award for the cost of Powers’s MBA.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Beyond a brief overview, we will not set out a global summary of the evidence. Because the various arguments of Powers turn on different facts, we will incorporate the relevant portions of the record in each part of the Discussion to which they relate.
The parties married on January 23, 1993, and stipulated to a separation date of November 1, 2011. At the time of trial in spring 2014, their older daughter was over 18 and attending Stanford University, and their son (born in Jan. 1997) was starting his senior year of high school in the fall. Both parties worked. Powers, a software engineer, was an executive with a Bay Area company that sold business software services; he earned in excess of $150,000 per year with additional compensation benefits. Widrin was an executive assistant with a computer manufacturer, and earned about $70,000 per year with bonuses.
As the trial court found, the parties had a lack of communication between them for the latter half of their marriage with respect to finances and budgeting. There were also frequent conflicts over the cost of their children’s activities.
After the date of separation and the filing of the petition, the parties jointly resided in the family home until its sale in September 2012. (After a June 2012 stipulation and order, the parties lived in the residence only during their respective custodial time with their son.)
The court issued its tentative decision after the trial in August 2014. Powers made what the court deemed to be objections to the tentative decision. At a September 2014 hearing, the court stated that it needed further testimony on the calculation of the value of the community’s interest in the stock units and stock shares. It hoped that the parties might reach a settlement before the date of that hearing. It emphasized that it was simply seeking clarification of calculations and was not reopening the issue of the manner in which the community interest was determined in the tentative decision. When Powers attempted to submit a new expert evaluation on the manner of determining the community interest, the court stated “he’s attempting to relitigate the issue of the vesting schedule . . . . [¶] We’re not here to relitigate [that].” The parties agreed with this limitation. Following the April 2015 supplementary hearing at which only Widrin’s expert testified, the court issued its August 2015 judgment.
DISCUSSION
1.0 The Trial Court Properly Characterized the Stock Units and Shares
As the trial court pointed out in its statement of decision, stock units granted and vesting after the date of separation are indisputably separate property (and thus irrelevant except for determining income for purposes of spousal and child support), and stock units granted and fully vesting before separation are indisputably community property subject to equal division. At issue is the valuation of the community interest in stock units that were granted before separation but did not vest until after that date.
The exact grant date of each block of stock units is irrelevant, because the terms of the grants specify a different date on which the block of stock units would commence to vest. (In any event, the only material difference between the dates appears in the August 2009 grant.) The grant sets out a quarterly vesting schedule for the block of units, which runs from that commencement date.
For example, soon after Powers began working for his employer in April 2009, he received the first grant in August 2009 in the amount of 6,000 stock units, with a vesting period commencing in May 2009. Twenty five percent of the block of units vested in May 2010 (each group of vesting units called a tranche), and thereafter a tranche of 1 16th of the original block would vest at the end of each subsequent three month period (for a maximum of 25 percent per year). The whole block would thus finish vesting four years after the commencement date.
Upon vesting, the restricted stock unit is exchanged for an actual share of stock in the employer. The vesting date of a tranche of units is thus a taxable event, with the employer selling off a portion of the newly issued shares and remitting the proceeds to the relevant tax authorities as the withholding on the anticipated ordinary tax liability for the distribution of the shares, and then delivering the balance of the issued shares to the employee’s brokerage account.
Subsequent grants were somewhat more liberal in that a tranche of about 1 16th of the block of stock units (now specified as a number of units rather than a percentage) vested every quarter of the vesting period from the commencement date. This schedule is included in the grants in March 2010 and 2011 (2,500 and 1,286 units respectively), as well as in the postseparation grants in March 2012 and 2013 (970 and 1,031 units respectively, which are irrelevant except to show the ongoing nature of the vesting schedule).
In a straightforward time rule calculation, Widrin’s expert determined that the community’s share in this contingent property interest of Powers would be a percentage reflecting the number of coverture days from the initial commencement of the vesting period for the block of units to the separation date (which decreased as Nov. 2011 approached), divided by the number of vesting period days between that initial commencement date and the date a particular tranche vested. As a result, the interest of the community dwindled proportionately for units with commencement dates closer to the separation date that had vesting dates well after the separation date.
Under this formula, the community’s share in the postseparation vesting of seven tranches from the 2009 grant shrank from 98 percent (rounded, as are the remainder of these percentages) for the November 2011 vesting to 62 percent for the May 2013 vesting; its share in 10 postseparation tranches from the 2010 grant shrank from 95 percent (the Dec. 2011 vesting) to 41 percent (the Mar. 2014 vesting); and its share in 14 postseparation tranches from the March 2011 grant shrank from 88 percent (the Dec. 2011 vesting) to 17 percent (the Mar. 2015 vesting). The expert fashioned the formula after one used in In re Marriage of Nelson (1986) 177 Cal.App.3d 150, which involved the grant of stock options that could not be exercised until a later point in time.
The trial court found this approach to be appropriate: “The straight time rule as applied by this Court provides an equitable allocation of community and separate property under the facts of this case.” It noted that this formula was actually more favorable to Powers than ones from other cases in which the number of coverture days would start with the hire date of Powers rather than the start of the vesting period. It rejected the opinion of Powers (who qualified as an expert based on education and expertise with stock units) that he did not have any property right in the stock units until after they vested. The trial court directed division in kind rather than a monetary value because of the difficulties in valuing a fluctuating asset over a range of time.
“[I]n marital dissolution actions[,] the trial court has broad discretion to select an equitable method of allocating [the] community . . . interest[] in stock options granted prior to the date of separation of the parties, which became exercisable after the date of separation.” (Hug, supra, 154 Cal.App.3d at p. 782.) Powers attempts to evade this standard of review through a claim that as a matter of law under the grants of the stock units, he earned each tranche only during the vesting quarter for that particular tranche. Other than distinguishing the nature of a stock unit from a stock option, he does not provide any authority for concluding that the nature of a stock unit takes it outside the category of contingent property interests that would justify the application of his unique approach.
Under the lodestar decision of In re Marriage of Brown (1976) 15 Cal.3d 838, the community’s share of a contingent property interest reflects the community effort in earning the contractual right to receive that benefit. (Hug, supra, 154 Cal.App.3d at p. 791; In re Marriage of Judd (1977) 68 Cal.App.3d 515, 522.) The right to receive any particular tranche requires ongoing community effort from the commencement of the four year period to the date of the vesting of that tranche, not just the three months preceding the vesting. This does not, as Powers argues, lead to the application of variable vesting rates for the various tranches; it instead reflects the discounted value of the community’s property interest in later tranches during the time that community expended the earlier efforts necessary to earn them. Powers would have a stronger argument in favor of his approach if instead of the grant of a block of incrementally vesting tranches, there were simply a grant every quarter of a number of stock shares. But with the employer’s grant of a contractual property interest in an entire block of stock units conditioned upon continued employment, the stock units are no different than any other form of contingent property interest. Indeed, Powers himself agreed in his trial brief in a fallback argument that if there were in fact a community interest in the stock units, its proper measure would be the formula in these cases.
It is immaterial that the employer is careful to note in the terms and conditions of the grant that stock units do not represent compensation for any purpose as between an employee and the employer. This simply represents a contractual effort to forestall any claim on an employee’s part to compensation for unvested stock units, but it does not purport to set a value of zero for the community’s contingent interest. The possibility of defeasance is the risk of any community share of a contingent property interest. We therefore reject the substantive claim of error.
The heading for this argument states, “The Superior Court Mistreated RSU’s as Community Property.” Tucked under this heading are two one paragraph procedural arguments. The first claims that the trial court deprived Powers of the opportunity to supply additional evidence on this issue in a posttrial proceeding. The second raises the entirely unrelated argument that the trial court lost jurisdiction to consider income from the stock units as bonus income. Under the authority cited in our introduction, we consider these arguments forfeited for the failure to raise them properly. As such, we simply note our agreement with Widrin’s argument that Powers improperly sought to expand the scope of the posttrial proceedings, a matter wholly within the trial court’s discretion. As for the latter point, we will address it where it properly belongs (under pt. 6.1, post).
2.0 Postseparation Unilateral Sales of Vested Stock Shares Was a Breach of
Fiduciary Duty
After separation, Powers sold off 2,046 of his vested shares of stock for a net total of $96,800 (rounded). The sales took place in November 2011, February 2012, August 2012, and September 2012. The sale prices varied; they were higher than the cost bases (with one exception), but were substantially below the stock price at the start of trial. The latter three sales occurred after the issuance and service of the summons for the petition (which incorporated a restraining order on any disposition of property) in January 2012. None of these sales were disclosed to Widrin until February 2014, at which time Powers indicated that he had spent all but $7,000 of the proceeds. The trial court found this conduct was plainly in breach of both the postseparation duty of full disclosure of any material change in assets in which the other spouse may have an interest, as well as the restraining order, and thus confined its extended analysis to determining Widrin’s damages.
The court exercised its discretion to value the community interest at the sales price of the shares on the first day of trial (subject to new evidence of a precipitous change in price). It thus awarded Widrin one half of that value. With respect to sanctions, the trial court noted that “Precious time and attorney resources were devoted to attempting to resolve this issue, and this matter was ultimately the subject of contentious litigation. In all likelihood, this issue contributed significantly to the failure of the parties to settle the entire case without litigation.” It therefore awarded Widrin $20,000 in legal fees, noting that this was “at the low end of the sanctions spectrum based on the case and statutory authority cited herein, and the particular facts of this case.”
The fiduciary duty between spouses imposes an ongoing obligation to make disclosures sua sponte about the community’s affairs that would affect assets in which the other spouse has an interest, a breach of which is subject to mandatory sanctions. (In re Marriage of Walker (2006) 138 Cal.App.4th 1408, 1427 1428; Fam. Code, §§ 721, 1100, subd. (e), 2100, subd. (c), 2102, subd. (b) [“all activities that affect the assets . . . of the other party”], 2107, subd. (c). ) A nonmalicious breach of this duty in transferring an asset entitles the other spouse to half of the value of the transferred asset and legal fees and costs. (In re Marriage of Hokanson (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 987, 992 993; § 1101, subd. (g).) In enforcement of this fiduciary duty, as a matter of law a petition for dissolution imposes a restraining order on the parties that precludes the transfer or disposition of any property without consent or an order of the court, except those made in the usual course of business or for the necessities of life. (In re Marriage of McTiernan & Dubrow (2005) 133 Cal.App.4th 1090, 1102 (McTiernan); § 2040.) A violation of the restraining order entitles the other party to relief, even if nonmalicious, because the offending party had the option of seeking consent or authorization. (McTiernan, at p. 1103.) The trial court’s ruling expounded on these principles at length.
It is an appellant’s obligation to provide cogent analysis of the claimed error in a trial court’s reasoning (Imagistics Internat., supra, 150 Cal.App.4th at pp. 588, 591, fn. 8), even if the standard of review is de novo (Claudio v. Regents of University of California (2005) 134 Cal.App.4th 224, 230 [the trial court is not a “ ‘potted plant’ ” to be ignored]). The only cognizable point Powers raises in his challenge to the ruling on this issue is his conclusory assertion that these sales “were essential to provide for the necessities of life,” i.e., his legal fees and costs. He otherwise completely disregards the trial court’s lengthy analysis.
Although Powers asserts that it was appropriate for him to act unilaterally because he “always made such decisions on behalf of the parties,” this does not absolve him generally of liability for violating the restraining order, nor does it establish the exception for an action taken “ ‘in the usual course of business.’ ” (McTiernan, supra, 133 Cal.App.4th at p. 1103, fn. 9.) The trial court specifically noted on this point, “[t]he sale of stock was certainly not related to [his] employment . . . .” As for his attempt to invoke the exception for “necessities of life,” Powers does not even address the trial court’s specific finding that unilateral resort to the proceeds from the stock sale was not justified under the exception, where he had a base salary of $12,500 per month and his cash flow issues were not significant enough to warrant taking that action, or whether the finding had support in the evidence. As a result, he fails to establish that the trial court erred in finding a breach of fiduciary duty and in awarding legal fees as a sanction.
3.0 The Trial Court Correctly Found That the Accounting Powers Provided of His Disposition of the Community Interest in the Stocks Was Inadequate
In addition to a chart Powers prepared purporting to summarize the stock sales that are listed in the statements from his brokerage account (which does not seem to track each transaction exactly), he also provided a list of postseparation expenses he paid from all sources of income without any attempt to allocate among the income sources. He testified briefly about the contents of this chart, after which the trial court apparently declined to admit the chart as an exhibit because it did not add anything to his testimony (in which he admitted he commingled his separate earnings and the proceeds from the sale of the community stock) and “because there’s no nexus between the amounts that you received and the payments that [you] made,” having earlier stated that it wanted to see a connection between these expenditures and the net proceeds from the stock.
In its ruling, the trial court discussed the principles regarding the duty of a spouse managing community assets to account for their disposition: Once the nonmanaging spouse presents a prima facie showing of the existence and value of the assets, the managing spouse has a burden to prove the proper disposition of the community assets for community purposes, and a failure to satisfy this burden will result in the managing spouse being charged with the value of the community assets, as well as being liable for sanctions for a breach of this fiduciary duty. (In re Marriage of Prentis Margulis & Margulis (2011) 198 Cal.App.4th 1252, 1267, 1270 (Prentis Margulis).) While the trial court did not dispute the accuracy of the expenditure exhibit, “the accounting summaries and testimony of [Powers] fall woefully short of meeting the burden . . . of proving the proper disposition of these assets.” In addition to the $100,000 or so from the sale of the stocks, Powers also had his monthly income of $12,500. However, “the summar[y] of [his] expenses completely fail[ed] to trace the source of the funds used to make the payment . . . [and] many of the payments themselves were not made for community obligations” (citing, in particular, the payment of expenses for an adult child that was not the subject of any contractual obligation that arose during coverture). The court also pointed to the inclusion of certain postseparation costs for Powers, such as his rental expenses and over $41,000 in “legal expenses.” It found he thus failed to satisfy his burden of proof under Prentis Margulis, and deemed him to have received all of the community funds from the stock sales.
On the issue of sanctions, the trial court concluded that the failure of Powers all along to have provided timely disclosure of the stock sales or a meaningful accounting “resulted in protracted litigation and misallocation of [legal] fees.” It therefore awarded sanctions in the amount of $10,000 for Widrin’s legal fees.
Other than complain in an aside that the trial court was not as demanding about particulars from Widrin with respect to the expenditures on her secret credit card, and challenge the trial court’s identification of his postseparation housing and legal costs as improper uses of community funds (failing to identify authority that might support this proposition), the totality of his argument that the trial court erred amounts to his reliance on the observation in Prentis Margulis that the accounting need not be “ ‘detailed.’ ” (Prentis Margulis, supra, 198 Cal.App.4th at p. 1279.) This misses the point of the ruling entirely. Powers admittedly commingled funds, and did not attempt at trial or afterward to offer a sufficiently detailed tracing of income and expenditures from which the disposition of the stock proceeds for separate or community purposes could be determined. His peremptory approach to his control over this community asset fueled the overall litigation. The lack of an accounting was thus properly subject to the sanction.
4.0 The Trial Court Properly Ordered Reimbursement to the Community of the Cost of Powers’s MBA
The trial court noted that section 2641 requires the community to be reimbursed for expenditures on a spouse’s education that substantially enhance the earning capacity of the spouse. “In the present case, it is undisputed that the sum of $28,144.51 of community funds were expended from 2009 to the date of separation on behalf of [Powers] for his attainment of an MBA in Finance from Notre Dame as indicated in Exhibit 24.[ ] It was also undisputed from the testimony that since the MBA was actually received after separation, the community did not substantially benefit [from it] within the meaning of [section 2641, subdivision (c)(1)]. Therefore, the sole issue . . . is whether the MBA degree ‘substantially enhance[d] [his] earning capacity . . . .’ In that regard, [Powers] testified that in [his job] an MBA was absolutely necessary to secure his position . . . . In fact virtually all of the people he supervised had an MBA. He also testified, however, that his base earnings were not enhanced, and therefore[] there was not a substantial increase in his earning capacity.” The court found, however, that he would have been unable to maintain his level in the company without acquiring the degree and would have faced a substantial decrease in compensation without it (which in fact had happened to him at a prior job because he lacked the degree). Under these circumstances, the degree in fact enhanced his earning capacity by preventing a drop, so the trial court ordered reimbursement to the community of the expenditures in the exhibit plus interest (appearing in an item detail report appended to the ruling, which states that interest commenced 12/31/11).
Once again, either willfully or inadvertently, Powers ignores the central thesis of the trial court’s reasoning. He argues only that the record does not support a finding that the degree increased his current earnings. He also challenges the calculation of the reimbursement award, in that it included the postseparation expenditures and apparently calculated $9,400 (rounded) in interest on that lump sum “commencin[g] 12/31/11” rather than from the date of each increment (though he does not provide any calculation of what he deems the correct interest should be).
Powers does not provide any authority to the contrary on the issue of whether a degree that prevents a loss in income can be considered as enhancing his income. His sole authority is thus inapposite: In re Marriage of Graham (2003) 109 Cal.App.4th 1321 involved a spouse employed as a police officer who attended law school without any plan to take the bar exam, under which circumstances the court found that any increase in his earning capacity was entirely speculative, given that a “ ‘demonstrabl[e] enhance[ment]’ ” must be shown (id. at p. 1325); in the present case, the evidence showed without dispute that Powers needed the degree simply to maintain his current level of pay. In light of this lack of cogent argument, we simply agree with the trial court’s logic.
Powers argues the undisputed evidence indicates he paid $2,591.51 of the $28,144.51 reimbursement award for his MBA after the parties separated. It is hard to believe that Widrin would actually contest a reduction by this amount in community reimbursement for postseparation expenditures where there is an equalizing figure owed to her in excess of $185,000. The trial court explicitly relied on the exhibit that Powers prepared, which shows the last three payments totaling that amount occurred after the date of separation. Therefore, Widrin’s claim of a lack of substantiation to support the exhibit falls on deaf ears, nor will we endorse her argument that the trial court inferentially was finding that Powers used community funds to make these three payments. We will modify the judgment by $2,591.51, bringing the total reimbursement for the MBA to $25,553.
With regard to the interest calculation, Widrin properly points out that the statute requires calculation of interest accruing from the end of each calendar year on the collective total of expenditures made in that year, rather than from the date of each expenditure. (§ 2641, subd. (b).) She does not provide, however, any calculations to demonstrate that interest in the item detail report is correct under this formula. Powers in reply concedes the application of this statutory formula, but again does not attempt to provide a calculation of the correct figure; as interest does not even begin to commence in the judgment until December 31, 2011, we question how he would benefit from commencing the interest earlier on the annual increments of the totals from 2009 2010. Much as this court does not act as a legal researcher for parties, we also do not act as accountants. While we might have been willing to modify the judgment to state the correct amount of interest, we are not going to allow the parties to expend further legal fees in applying to the trial court for a recalculation of interest despite the apparent concession of Powers. Therefore, for failure to demonstrate affirmatively the error and prejudice arising from the possibly flawed manner in which the trial court calculated interest, we deem the argument forfeited. (See Paterno v. State of California (1999) 74 Cal.App.4th 68, 106.)
5.0 The “Secret” Credit Card and Other Epstein Credits
5.1 The Credit Card
Although the testimony is not entirely clear and we do not have the benefit of the exhibits about which she was testifying, it appears that postseparation Widrin made payments on a credit card in her name of almost $29,000, of which nearly half reflected accumulated interest. Powers was unaware of the existence of this card until January 2011, when Widrin included it in a list of her bills that she gave to him. As the statement of decision notes, “During the marriage, neither party disclosed to the other the financial details relating to payment of debt . . . and there was a long[ ]established pattern of not communicating with respect to any financial matters.” The trial court credited Widrin’s testimony that Powers directed her to get a credit card to pay her share of community expenses. It noted the absence of any evidence that the charges on this account were for anything other than the ordinary daily expenses of Widrin and her children, even when it pressed Powers to identify any on the statements (beyond his criticism of her expenditures). The trial court found these credit charges did not come within the criteria of “bad acts” that are deemed the separate debt of the incurring spouse. (In re Marriage of Cairo (1988) 204 Cal.App.3d 1255, 1267 [expenditures on gambling]; In re Marriage of Stitt (1983) 147 Cal.App.3d 579, 588 [liability for embezzlement that did not benefit the community]; but see In re Marriage of Bell (1996) 49 Cal.App.4th 300, 310 [liability for embezzlement that had benefitted community is community debt].) As for the finance charges on the credit card, the trial court found Widrin should have disclosed the interest rate (21 percent) and amounts before 2011, but this did not amount to a breach of fiduciary duty because she reasonably feared the reaction of Powers. Therefore, the trial court simply disallowed the claim for Epstein credits for repayment of the interest, but granted an Epstein credit for the underlying charges in the amount of $13,700 (rounded).
Powers contends the trial court could not absolve Widrin of a breach of disclosure duties merely because she was apprehensive of his reaction, and that these undisputed facts instead establish a breach of fiduciary duty as a matter of law. He relies on In re Marriage of Fossum (2011) 192 Cal.App.4th 336 (Fossum).
In Fossum, the wife took a substantial cash advance on a credit card without disclosing it to the husband; there was a dispute whether she used the advance for community debts or for personal purposes. The trial court found a breach of the duty to disclose a material transaction affecting the community’s interests, but declined to exercise its discretion to award legal fees under section 1101. (Fossum, supra, 192 Cal.App.4th at pp. 339, 341 342.) The Court of Appeal reversed, concluding that an award of legal fees upon a finding of a breach of fiduciary duty was mandatory, not discretionary, even if the violation did not reflect any wrongdoing. (Fossum, at pp. 347 348, citing In re Marriage of Brewer & Federici (2001) 93 Cal.App.4th 1334, 1344 [duty of disclosure exists independent of any finding of wrongdoing].) As the concurring and dissenting opinion in Fossum observed, “the statutorily imposed fiduciary duties in marital dissolution actions are extremely strict, making innocent violations easy to commit,” making this mandatory award of legal fees an anomaly that the Legislature might want to revisit. (Fossum, at p. 350 (conc. & dis. opn. of Rothschild, J.).)
Therefore, regardless of whether Widrin had a well founded basis for failing to disclose to Powers that her management of this credit card (that he had directed her to obtain) had led to the incurring of a significant balance and finance charges as an obligation of the community, it was nonetheless a breach of her disclosure obligations, giving rise to a mandatory award of legal fees to Powers. The trial court therefore erred in failing to find a breach of fiduciary duty.
What Powers ignores, however, is that even this mandatory award of legal fees is subject to the general requirement that Widrin had the ability to pay the award. (§§ 270, 271; see Fossum, supra, 93 Cal.App.4th at p. 350, fn. 2 (conc. & dis. opn. of Rothschild, J.).) In light of the trial court’s award of legal fees to Widrin pursuant to section 2030 based on her inability to pay all of the legal fees incurred in this action, we do not find it reasonably probable that the trial court would find Widrin has the ability to pay legal fees as a sanction in connection with this issue, and therefore deem the error harmless.
5.2 Remaining Epstein Credits
On this issue, Powers submitted an exhibit (that is not part of the record on appeal) detailing seven categories of expenses for which he claimed Epstein credits, which are listed in the statement of decision with a total of $62,000 (rounded). The trial court determined that about $40,000 of these expenses reflected either his duty of support before the entry of the support order in April 2012, a stipulated disposition of a vehicle, or payments on behalf of the adult child. It found Widrin was similarly not entitled to Epstein credits for unspecified postseparation expenditures before April 2012 because she could not have any reasonable expectation of reimbursement for them, leaving about $20,000 in requested Epstein credits. As the remaining expenditures after April 2012 are roughly equal and “the Court cannot conclude by a preponderance of the evidence that it is reasonable for either party to expect reimbursement for any of the claims presented,” the trial court declined to award either party any further Epstein credits.
Powers makes a one page argument of which we frankly cannot make any sense; specifically his claims about not being reimbursed for paying unspecified monthly bills in lieu of spousal support. We do not understand how these expenditures would be the subject of Epstein credits if they discharge his support obligation. We have noted above the trial court’s finding that Powers commingled funds without any effort to allocate between community and separate income or expenditures, which seems to underlie its conclusion on this issue. Moreover, Powers does not address the trial court’s alternative holding that the postseparation expenditures roughly offset each other. For want of clear explanation and factual basis, we disregard this argument.
6.0 The Trial Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion in Setting Spousal Support
In June 2012, the parties entered into a stipulation that included a provision for temporary spousal support commencing with April 2012. The court order enforcing this stipulation states, “Both Child and temporary Spousal Support [to be] based upon . . . base salary [of Powers] . . . , pending further Court orders. [Powers] shall also pay [Widrin] 32% of the gross amount of any other employment[ ]based income, including, but not limited to, bonus income.” In its award of spousal support arrearages, the trial court stated, “[Widrin] is due the agreed upon 32% of the gross value of [Powers’s] separate property [in stock shares] or any other bonus income that ha[s] vested [both][ ] [after] the date of separation, and after the [April 2012] support order . . . .” (Italics added.)
In its discussion of permanent spousal support, the statement of decision recites that it must consider the factors listed in section 4320, with discretion over the weight to be accorded each factor. In setting spousal support, this discretion is not constrained by the marital standard of living (which may be determined on the basis of average income rather than expenses (In re Marriage of Ackerman (2006) 146 Cal.App.4th 191, 208)) if other factors require an adjustment upward or downward. Determining the monthly net spendable income over the final five years of the marriage, and awarding each party 55 percent of that total to reflect the efficiencies of a common household over separate households, the trial court found the marital standard of living was in the range of $6,500 $7,000. It then found section 4320 factors applicable as follows.
The relative incomes of the parties were unlikely to increase significantly, nor could either party take any action to increase earning capacity. Powers could easily maintain the marital standard of living, while Widrin would need spousal support to do so. Powers easily had the capability of paying spousal support. The significant education costs of their older adult daughter, or the imminent postsecondary education costs for their son, could not be a factor in spousal support. The higher housing costs of Powers’s residing in the Bay Area near his work was a proper consideration, but the costs of maintaining a residence in Placer County to be near the minor child would end once their son left for college. The tax consequences would be more favorable to Powers. In light of the above, the court determined that $1,000 per month in spousal support to Widrin was appropriate. In setting that fixed figure, the court took the availability of bonus compensation for Powers into account of his overall resources, but declined to tie the level of support directly to the actual level of bonuses in subsequent years because this would lead simply to further litigation over the calculations (noting the parties were free to move in the future for modification). This amount of support would still leave Powers exceeding the marital standard of living, and Widrin being below it. The trial court also noted that any shortfall Powers was presently experiencing reflected his choice in retaining the vested stock shares rather than liquidating them.
To extract the gist of arguments that meander across 11 pages with respect to arrearages and permanent support, Powers argues that the parties did not intend to include the vested stock shares as bonus income in the April 2012 order; it is “double dipping” to both measure support arrearages premised in part on his separate property interest in stock units that vested into shares after April 2012, and to award Widrin her half of the community interest in the shares; the trial court failed to consider statutory criteria in setting permanent support; and the final award of arrearages failed to give credit for offsets and also miscalculated interest. We treat these in turn.
6.1 Vested Stock Units Are Embraced in the Stipulation and Order
The flaw in the reasoning of Powers lies in its premise that the failure of the stipulation to expressly list vested stock shares as income excluded them from its ambit. He fails to explain why “bonus income” in the stipulation and order should not be given its ordinary meaning of compensation received in addition to base salary, or to demonstrate the existence of any extrinsic evidence that would give support to his skewed reading of straightforward language, other than (again) the terms of the agreement that define the nature of the stock units vis à vis Powers and his employer.
Consequently, the inclusion of vested stock shares is not a modification of the stipulation for temporary support in any sense. We accordingly do not need to consider the claim that the trial court did not have jurisdiction to modify the “pendant light [sic]” order for temporary support.
6.2 The Temporary Support Arrearages Do Not Double Count Vested Shares
In the course of his argument, Powers (purposefully or otherwise) conflates the two distinct types of postseparation stock units and vested stock shares (as described at length in pt. 1.0, ante). There are the stock shares in which the community had a percentage interest because this compensation flowed from a grant of stock units during coverture (for which Widrin was awarded her half), and there are the stock shares which are entirely the separate property of Powers.
His frequent invocation of the phrase “double dipping” is thus unwarranted. The shares that are his separate property are not any less a form of compensation on which his support obligation can be measured than is his base salary.
6.3 The Trial Court Did Not Err in Setting Permanent Support
Powers contends the “would be agreement” (by which he presumably means the written stipulation and court order) was not binding on the trial court in setting the amount of permanent support and thus the court erred in failing to consider necessary statutory factors. (In re Marriage of Zywiciel (2000) 83 Cal.App.4th 1078, 1082.) Among these are what he claims are insufficient evidence of the marital standard of living and Widrin’s postseparation needs (for neither of these claims does he specify any particular evidence), and his substantial separate credit card debt.
Given the lengthy findings of the trial court we summarized above, we are at a loss in determining how this argument even applies to this record. The trial court did not base permanent support in any respect on the stipulation and order; it based the marital standard of living on the evidence of net spendable monthly income (allocating 55 percent to each party), and Powers does not identify any evidence that would demonstrate this figure was in error as a matter of law. Nor does Powers provide any authority for the postseparation needs of Widrin overriding the evidence of the net spendable monthly income (or even identify any particular evidence of this in the record that would render the amount of permanent support erroneous as a matter of law). As for the failure in the statement of decision to account specifically for his substantial credit card debt in setting support, as we noted above the trial court explicitly stated that any budgetary shortfalls Powers experienced were a function of his own choice with respect to the stock shares available for sale. We therefore reject this argument without further elaboration.
6.4 The Arguments Regarding Credits and Interest Are Not Well Taken
Finally, Powers again argues in one place that he did not receive credit for his housing expense toward temporary support, as provided in the stipulation and order. In a later tenebrous paragraph (as Widrin notes, “the cited figures do not appear in the record as he cites”), Powers claims that Widrin “owed [him] $9,6[00] in credit for the temporary support period[;] . . . the prope[r]tizer fails to reflect the [$3,500]” owed to him for the costs of maintaining a single home for their son while the spouses maintained personal residences elsewhere (see Lester v. Lennane (2000) 84 Cal.App.4th 536, 544); and the item detail report awards interest on arrearages for temporary support, contrary to the judgment.
It does not satisfy his obligation as an appellant for Powers to cite to the entirety of the judgment and a 12 page section of the statement of decision (the analysis of spousal and child support), excerpts from his posttrial briefing, and a snippet of his testimony discussing an exhibit summarizing his claims for Epstein credits (that is not part of the record) as factual support for the three arguments that seem to be premised on a failure to award him credit against spousal support for his payment of the parties’ joint housing expenses. (People v. Smith (2015) 61 Cal.4th 18, 48.) We have absolutely no idea from what source or by what methodology Powers calculates the $9,600 and $3,500 figures. As Widrin points out, the trial court concluded he was not entitled to any expenditures for housing antedating the support order because it was in lieu of his obligation to provide reasonable support, and his housing expenditures after that date were part of the trial court’s denial of the roughly equal competing claims for Epstein credits. (According to Widrin, the court also credited housing expenditures against support arrearages, but as the exhibit to which the statement of decision cites is not part of the record on appeal, we cannot substantiate this assertion.) We therefore reject the arguments regarding a failure to give proper credit for housing expenditures against the award of spousal support for want of proper development or factual support.
As for the claim regarding interest on support arrearages, the tentative statement of decision recites that it was awarding interest on the $6,900 (rounded) arrearages in base support but reserved jurisdiction to determine the amount. (The court declined to award interest on arrearages for bonus compensation because the shares were subject to the restraining order.) The item detail report in the statement of decision indicated that amount plus interest totaled $10,700 (rounded) as of May 2015. The August 2015 judgment states, “The Court declines to attribute any interest on the [child and spousal support] arrears to date.” We do not interpret this statement (as does Powers) to be a reversal of its previous award of interest. It more properly reflects a denial of interest from the date of the item detail report to the date of the judgment. We therefore reject this argument.
7.0 The Trial Court’s Award of Legal Fees Was a Proper Exercise of Discretion
Noting that it had already granted legal fees to Widrin for the breach of fiduciary and accounting duties by Powers as a sanction, the trial court first declined to award further legal fees as a sanction based on the minimal settlement offers he had made. However, “[w]ith respect to [legal] fees pursuant to [section 2030], in light of the disparity in incomes after payment of support, and [Powers’s] significantly greater potential for amassing a substantial separate property estate by virtue of his superior earnings and earning capacity, [legal] fees are hereby awarded to [Widrin] in the sum of $10,000.00”
Powers contends (to quote the entirety of his argument on this issue), “the Superior Court . . . neglected to factor in [Wife’s actual needs and Husband’s debt] when it awarded Wife an additional $10,000 in [legal] fees under section 2030. Even if this ruling could be upheld in the face of such a shortcoming, reversal of the underlying property division and/or support orders should require reversal of this and [the] other fee awards to Wife. (See Lane v. Bradley (1959) 171 Cal.App.2d 27, 28 30.)”
A trial court is required to award legal fees if it finds there is a disparity in the ability to pay. (§ 2030, subd. (a)(2).) The award is reviewed for an abuse of discretion, and is premised on the relative current incomes and assets, regardless of whether the party awarded fees has resources. (In re Marriage of Dietz (2009) 176 Cal.App.4th 387, 406.) In his paragraph of argument, Powers fails to identify any circumstances of the parties that would make the award of $10,000 in legal fees unreasonable as a matter of law, much less provide cogent argument toward that end. For this want of elaboration, we deem the argument forfeited in this respect. As we have not reversed any of the property division or support orders in material part, we reject his argument in that respect.
DISPOSITION
The reimbursement award for the cost of Powers’s MBA degree is reduced to $25,553, and the trial court shall make the necessary adjustment to the equalizing

payment to Widrin. As thus modified, the judgment is affirmed. Widrin is entitled to recover her costs on appeal. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.278(a)(1), (3).)



BUTZ , J.


We concur:



RAYE , P. J.



ROBIE , J.