## Facts

- Husband and wife married in 1967 and had three children; wife primarily managed the home while husband was the main wage earner.
- The family lived an upper-class lifestyle supported largely by the husband’s work in a family equipment business.
- Throughout the 27-year marriage, the husband was a heavy gambler, including illegal sports betting and some casino gambling; the wife knew of and tolerated the practice.
- In 1990, the wife received an inheritance of about $1.3 million; income from the inheritance was used for some household expenses, while the husband paid taxes on the inheritance income and funded major family expenses, including substantial education costs.
- The wife filed for divorce in 1991; the husband moved out in 1992 after unsuccessful counseling.
- Because detailed gambling records were unavailable, experts estimated the husband’s 10-year net gambling losses at roughly $297,000 to $708,000; the fact-finder determined losses of $400,000.
- The Probate and Family Court valued the marital estate at $4,442,284 (including the inheritance), found $400,000 in net gambling losses, treated $40,000 as “waste,” and ordered a $40,000 transfer from husband to wife as recompense.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred by declining to treat the husband’s entire net gambling losses as dissipation/waste of marital assets in equitably dividing property.
2. Whether the trial court’s findings on the amount of gambling losses were clearly erroneous.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the judgment.
- The court held the trial court acted within its discretion by treating only $40,000 of the gambling losses as waste.
- The court held the $400,000 loss finding was not clearly erroneous given the evidence and credibility determinations.

## Legal Principles

- In equitable distribution under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 208, § 34, “dissipation” generally concerns spending for a spouse’s personal benefit that depletes the marital estate when the marriage is undergoing an irretrievable breakdown.
- Longstanding spending patterns known to and tolerated by the other spouse, even if illegal or imprudent, are not automatically dissipation; a per se rule based on illegality is inconsistent with the discretionary, factor-based § 34 framework.
- Appellate review of property-division fact-finding is deferential; trial judges may weigh expert testimony and select a reasonable figure supported by the record.
- Whether particular expenditures constitute “waste” is committed to the trial court’s equitable judgment in light of the totality of circumstances and the overall property division.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed the property division, concluding that substantial, illegal gambling losses occurring as a long-term marital pattern were not automatically dissipation of marital assets, and that the trial court reasonably found only a limited portion to be waste and made a modest compensatory adjustment within its broad § 34 discretion.


Kittredge v. Kittredge, 441 Mass. 28, 803 N.E.2d 306 (Mass. 2004)