Opinion
No. 1-611 / 00-0591.
Filed April 10, 2002.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Scott County, BOBBI M. ALPERS, Judge.
Gary Brogran appeals from the district court's rulings on Carolyn Brogan's application for a final accounting.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Robert H. Gallagher of Gosma Gallagher, P.L.C., Davenport, for appellant.
Marc Gellerman, Bettendorf, for appellee.
Considered by HUITINK, P.J., and ZIMMER and VAITHESWARAN, JJ.
Gary Brogan appeals from the district court's ruling on Carolyn Brogan's application for final accounting. At issue is a provision of the divorce decree dividing John Deere stock options equally between the parties. Due to ownership restrictions associated with the stock options, the decree required Gary to exercise Carolyn's options at her request. Carolyn's attorney made such request on her behalf to Robert Gallagher, Gary's attorney, indicating Carolyn was interested in exercising her options because the stock was now trading at sixty dollars per share. When Gallagher was unable to reach Gary, he sent a letter notifying him that Carolyn wanted to exercise her options when the stock was at "$60.00 per share or better." By the time Gary received the message, the stock had dropped to fifty-five dollars. Gary challenges the subsequent district court order requiring him to pay Carolyn fifty-five dollars per share for the unexercised options. He also argues that the court erred in failing to consider the income tax consequences of the 1996 tax year in the final accounting of the parties' assets.
In this equity case, our scope of review is de novo. Iowa R. App. P. 6.4.
We find the district court erred in ordering Gary to pay Carolyn for the unexercised options. Under a reasonable construction of the divorce decree, Gary's obligation was to facilitate the exercise of Carolyn's stock options, not to function as a guarantor of a desired trading price. In the absence of evidence suggesting Gary sought to avoid or ignore Carolyn's communications, we find the court's ruling inequitable. We accordingly reverse the district court's decision on this issue. See In re Marriage of Smith, 573 N.W.2d 924, 926 (Iowa 1998) (although trial court is afforded considerable latitude in resolving economic disputes in dissolution actions, we will reverse only where there has been a failure to do equity).
We decline to address Gary's argument regarding the court's failure to consider income tax consequences because Gary failed to raise this issue below. In re Marriage of Maher, 596 N.W.2d 561, 567 (Iowa 1999) (only issues presented to and passed on by the trial court may be raised and adjudicated on appeal).
The district court decision is accordingly reversed and remanded for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.