Marriage of Sweeney and Smith CA1/2
After 16 years of marriage, Catherine Sweeney and Lee Smith separated, and a year later she filed a petition for dissolution. Though Smith was served with process, he failed to respond, and months later Sweeney sought the entry of default and a default judgment. The default judgment resolved issues of support (it awarded none) and divided certain community assets, but reserved jurisdiction to divide the family home, which Smith had continued to occupy. Smith was served with those papers, too, but again took no action.
Fast forward three years, when Sweeney, having tried to persuade Smith to buy her interest to no avail, filed a request for an order to sell the family home. This got Smith’s attention, and he finally retained counsel and appeared in the case for the first time. He contested and sought to delay either buying out Sweeney’s interest in the house or putting the house on the market so the proceeds could be divided. That issue, having been reserved, was now ripe a
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