Urban & Pozzuto LLC Litigation Cases Page

Litigated Cases

Brian M. Urban and Bridgette D. Pozzuto, of the Cleveland, Ohio law firm, Urban & Pozzuto
LLC, represent clients with a wide range of divorce, custody, support and other family law issues.
The following case summaries represent a small sampling of the challenging variety of family law
cases that we have litigated. The information below is general in nature and is not intended to be
specific legal advice. If you have a question about a specific legal issue, you should contact an
attorney for assistance.

Separate Property: Garrett v. Garrett

This matter presented substantial challenges in presenting adequate proof to successfully trace separate property that had been arguably commingled with marital property. Our client received substantial distributions from multiple trusts during the marriage, but shuffled the proceeds between various brokerage accounts and also invested some of the proceeds into two business enterprises over the subsequent fifteen to twenty years. Extensive trial preparations conducted by our firm ultimately produced a settlement whereby our client retained approximately 90% of all of the assets, both separate and marital, and further received a waiver of any claims for spousal support by the wife, who held no significant employment whatsoever during the parties' twenty-year marriage.

Pension Division: Gucciardo v. Gucciardo

The primary challenge in this matter was to preserve for our client, who was the spouse of a participant in a public pension program, her equitable share in the future pension benefits. Other assets were inadequate to use as an offset. In many cases where a public pension program is to be divided as a marital asset, there exists a substantial possibility that the participant might take undue advantage of the pension plan's format to retain an inequitable portion of the pension. A potentially devastating loss to our client was avoided when negotiations successfully resulted in an agreed order to secure her receipt of her equitable interest in her former husband's benefits.

Modification of Custody: Gabel v. Gabel

Approximately eleven months before becoming our client, the mother had voluntarily relinquished primary physical custody of the parties' child after an adverse forensic custody evaluation and an adverse guardian ad litem report had been issued. The mother's prior counsel had unsuccessfully challenged, both in the lower court and the court of appeals, the court's award of primary physical custody to the father. Our careful examination of the facts revealed several irregularities in the forensic custody evaluation, including inappropriate psychological test scoring and a conflict of interest, ultimately leading to the mother regaining primary physical custody of the parties' child.

Custody: Corrigan v. Corrigan, et al.

In this case, issues arose not only from the divorce action between the wife and the husband, but also from parentage actions between the two parties and the two biological fathers who were added as parties to the divorce action. Multiple jurisdiction, custody and support issues were presented. Resolution of these issues required substantial knowledge of various interrelated areas of family law, together with creativity and flexibility in responding to the concerns of both the trial court and the various parties. Our client ultimately prevailed on all issues in the Court of Appeals.

Child Support: Ambrose v. Ambrose

This case dealt with the child support determination dilemma presented whenever the parties have a shared parenting plan providing for nearly equal possession time. This case also addressed the application of the child support statute to a modification of a prior order that required no child support to be paid. Prior to the briefing of the appeal, the Eighth District Court of Appeals had not directly addressed these issues and other Courts of Appeals were divided. Subsequently, the Ohio Supreme Court adopted the same approach advocated by our firm and adopted by the majority opinion in this case on appeal.

Spousal Support: Kohler v. Kohler

This case involved an examination of the circumstances under which an ex wife's cohabitation with a non-related male should result in a termination of her spousal support. Although extensive documentation of financial support (normally an essential element to terminating spousal support) was not readily available due to the extensive use of cash by the cohabitating couple, the trial court ruled in favor of our client by concluding that the totality of the evidence compelled the conclusion that the cohabitating couple had assumed mutual obligations to each other.

Non-Disclosed Assets Discovered After Divorce: Zulli v. Zulli

The issues presented were (1.) whether post-divorce relief should be granted when a non-disclosed asset was not revealed until more than a year after the divorce, and (2.) what should be the scope of that relief. The Court of Appeals sided with our client on appeal, holding that relief should be made available and that the omitted asset itself may be divided in lieu of vacating the entire divorce decree.

The information above is general in nature and is not intended to be specific legal advice. If you have a question about a specific legal issue, you should contact an attorney for assistance.

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