Marriage of Mathiesen

25CA0670 Marriage of Mathiesen 01-29-2026

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 25CA0670
Weld County District Court No. 23DR30320
Honorable Jayme L. Muehlenkamp, Judge

In re the Marriage of

Jessica Mathiesen,

Appellee,

and

Michael Mathiesen,

Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division III
Opinion by JUDGE MOULTRIE
Dunn and Taubman*, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced January 29, 2026

SM Family Law, LLC, Sangeetha Mallavarapu, Boulder, Colorado, for Appellee

The Law Firm of Brian DeBauche, Brian DeBauche, Denver, Colorado, for
Appellant

*Sitting by assignment of the Chief Justice under provisions of Colo. Const. art.
VI, § 5(3), and § 24-51-1105, C.R.S. 2025.
¶1 Michael Mathiesen (husband) appeals the part of the property

division concerning the equity in the marital home entered in

connection with the dissolution of his marriage to Jessica

Mathiesen (wife). We affirm.

I. Background

¶2 Husband and wife were married in June 2008 and had a child

together about two years later. The parties both contributed to the

marriage in different ways: Husband financially supported the

family, and wife primarily took care of the home and the parties’

child.1

¶3 In 2014, the parties purchased a home for $255,000. Only

husband’s name appeared on the mortgage and deed. The down

payment for the home totaled $20,000, and husband’s employment

was the primary source of those funds. The parties separated in

2018, and wife filed a petition for dissolution of marriage in 2023.

In February 2025, the district court held a permanent orders

hearing at which the parties and a joint expert witness testified.

The joint expert witness was a residential real estate appraiser who

1 The parties have one shared child, but wife has another child not

of the marriage.

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appraised the marital home and testified that the home’s value was

$590,000.

¶4 Husband disputed the appraiser’s value of the marital home

and introduced into evidence tax assessments from 2018 and 2024.

He requested the court to value the home as of 2018 — the year the

parties separated — and asserted the value of the home was

$347,354 based on the 2018 tax assessment.

¶5 After the hearing, the court entered a decree dissolving the

parties’ marriage and permanent orders dividing the marital

property and debts.

¶6 The court found, among other things, that

• the home was marital property and was the parties’

biggest asset;

• the parties “equally contributed toward[] the acquisition

of the [home]” through husband’s financial support and

wife’s homemaking and caretaking;

• the taxable values of the home listed on the property tax

assessments were “not at all equivalent to the value of

the home”;

• the home’s value was $590,000;

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• the home might have been, based on the appraiser’s

findings, appraised at a higher value had it been properly

maintained while solely under husband’s physical

control;

• “[a]ny increase in the home’s value [was] solely due to

market conditions”;

• the parties had similar financial circumstances, although

husband had recently inherited a $55,000 IRA; and

• it was fair and equitable to equally divide the home’s

equity under the totality of the circumstances.

¶7 Husband appeals the court’s equal division of the home’s

equity. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the judgment.

II. Applicable Legal Principles

¶8 In a dissolution of marriage proceeding, the court must divide

marital property as it deems just. § 14-10-113(1), C.R.S 2025.

“[M]arital property” is all property acquired by either spouse after

the date of marriage except property described in the four statutory

exceptions set forth in section 14-10-113(2)(a)-(d). § 14-10-113(2);

see In re Marriage of Blaine, 2021 CO 13, ¶ 3.

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¶9 When dividing marital property, the court considers all

relevant factors under section 14-10-113(1), including each

spouse’s (1) contribution to the acquisition of the marital property;

(2) awarded property; (3) economic circumstances; and

(4) increased, decreased, or depleted separate property.

§ 14-10-113(1)(a)-(d); see In re Marriage of Balanson, 25 P.3d 28, 35

(Colo. 2001). “The property division must be equitable, but not

necessarily equal.” In re Marriage of Wright, 2020 COA 11, ¶ 3.

And “[t]he key to an equitable distribution is fairness, not

mathematical precision.” In re Marriage of Gallo, 752 P.2d 47, 55

(Colo. 1988).

¶ 10 “[T]he trial court has great latitude to effect an equitable

distribution based upon the facts and circumstances of each case,”

so “an appellate court must not disturb a trial court’s decision

regarding division of property unless there has been a clear abuse

of discretion.” Balanson, 25 P.3d at 35. A court abuses its

discretion when its ruling misconstrues or misapplies the law or is

manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair. In re Marriage of

Evans, 2021 COA 141, ¶ 25.

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III. The Court Didn’t Abuse Its Discretion When It Equally Divided
the Marital Home’s Equity

¶ 11 As an initial matter, it’s undisputed that the home was

acquired after the parties were married and that the funds used to

purchase the home were marital funds.2 Thus, the home is marital

property even though it was titled and financed in husband’s name

alone. See § 14-10-113(2).

¶ 12 Husband argues that the district court erred by awarding each

party an equal share of the marital home’s equity. He argues that

the court didn’t adequately consider his contribution to the

acquisition of the home, the length of time the parties had been

separated, and the parties’ financial circumstances when the

permanent orders hearing occurred. We disagree for three reasons.

¶ 13 First, the record demonstrates that the court expressly

considered husband’s financial contributions to the acquisition of

the home. Nevertheless, husband asserts that “he was the primary

2 Husband testified that he received about $1,000 of the $20,000

down payment from his mother. Husband doesn’t argue now, nor
did he argue in the district court, that any gifted funds from his
mother should be considered separate property. And husband
affirmed that the moneys used to pay for the home were marital
funds.

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breadwinner during the marriage,” and “[w]ithout his contributions,

the parties would not have been able to purchase the home in

2014.” Husband seemingly asserts that his financial contributions

were more meaningful than wife’s contributions when considering

the parties’ ability to buy and maintain the marital home. He

presented the same argument to the district court; indeed, the court

acknowledged that husband was the primary financial provider and

that the parties had used husband’s income earned during the

marriage for the down payment of the home. However, the court

also found that husband’s financial contributions didn’t “negate”

wife’s contributions to the acquisition of the home because she

contributed by homemaking, caretaking, and helping with home

improvement projects.

¶ 14 Section 14-10-113(1)(a) explicitly states that one factor the

court should consider when dividing marital property, if relevant, is

a spouse’s contribution as a homemaker. Both parties testified that

wife was a homemaker and a caretaker for the parties’ child and

that she assisted husband with making improvements to the home.

And because marital property includes the increased equity in a

home acquired after the parties’ marriage, see Rhoades v. Rhoades,

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535 P.2d 1122, 1124 (Colo. 1975), the court properly considered

wife’s contributions to the acquisition of the marital home in its

division of the home’s equity. Thus, husband hasn’t demonstrated

that the court abused its discretion when it weighed the parties’

contributions to the acquisition of the home; he merely disagrees

with the outcome. And we aren’t at liberty to reweigh the evidence.

See In re Marriage of Thorburn, 2022 COA 80, ¶ 49 (it is for the

district court to determine the weight, probative force, and

sufficiency of the evidence and any inferences and conclusions to be

drawn therefrom).

¶ 15 Second, we reject husband’s argument that the court didn’t

appropriately consider the impact of the parties’ separation on the

home’s increased value or the length of the parties’ separation when

determining how to equitably divide the home’s equity.

¶ 16 It’s true that wife left the home in 2018 and was no longer

providing homemaking, while husband continued to pay the

mortgage. It’s also true that the parties lived together in the home

for approximately four years after buying it, while husband lived

alone in the home for seven years between the parties’ separation

and the permanent orders hearing. The court acknowledged these

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circumstances and ultimately found that the home’s value had

increased solely because of the housing market. In so finding, the

court noted the negative impact that husband’s lack of maintenance

of the home had on its value and noted husband’s missed mortgage

payments, which resulted in a lien on the home. The court thus

found that “[h]usband ha[d] not independently contributed in any

significant way to any increase in the home’s value.” The court also

considered that wife incurred separate housing costs and expenses

during the separation rather than contributing to the home’s

mortgage or other bills.

¶ 17 Section 14-10-113(5) states that “property shall be valued as

of the date of the decree.” Although the parties separated in 2018,

neither party filed a petition for a legal separation. And wife didn’t

file the underlying petition for dissolution of marriage until 2023.

Thus, the parties’ marriage remained intact until the court entered

the decree in 2025.

¶ 18 The General Assembly didn’t carve out any exceptions for

passive appreciation of marital property during a period of

separation before the commencement of a dissolution of marriage

proceeding. See § 14-10-113(3)-(4); Rhoades, 535 P.2d at 1124.

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And husband hasn’t provided any authority supporting his position

that the court should have valued the home as of the date of the

parties’ separation because (1) after wife left the home in 2018, she

was no longer providing homemaking, and (2) when the court

entered the decree, husband had been paying the mortgage and

other bills longer than the period the parties had lived in the home

together. Moreover, the authority that husband relies on is

misplaced.

¶ 19 Husband relies on Liggett v. Liggett, 380 P.2d 673, 675 (Colo.

1963), in support of his argument. In that case, the supreme court

affirmed the district court’s ruling declining to allocate any marital

property to the wife due to the wife’s failure to contribute to the

marriage or financial resources of the parties. Id. Furthermore, the

Liggett court found that the wife’s “addiction and conduct

constituted a drain upon the husband to his embarrassment and

detriment.” Id. But Liggett predates the General Assembly’s

adoption of the Uniform Dissolution of Marriage Act, which

abrogated fault-based divorce. See In re Marriage of Franks, 542

P.2d 845, 849 (Colo. 1975). Moreover, unlike the wife in Liggett

who “failed during the entire period of the marriage relationship to

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perform her duties as a wife and a partner in the marriage

relationship,” 380 P.2d at 675, the court here found that wife “was

the main homemaker and child caretaker” and, at times, “travelled

with or assisted [h]usband with [his] business.” Thus, Liggett is

distinguishable.

¶ 20 Husband also relies on In re Marriage of Hunt, 909 P.2d 525,

542 (Colo. 1995), for the proposition that “economic fault” is

applicable in this case. “‘Economic fault’ is a limited concept which

comes into play only in extreme cases such as the spouse’s

dissipation of marital assets in the contemplation of divorce.” Id.

Husband never argued in the district court, and doesn’t argue now,

that wife dissipated marital assets in contemplation of the divorce.

And we disagree that wife’s lack of contribution to the marital home

during the parties’ separation constitutes an “extreme case[]” such

that the economic fault concept should apply. Id. at 542-43.

¶ 21 Because the court followed its statutory mandate by valuing

the home as of the date of the decree and exercised its discretion by

considering the factors in section 14-10-113(1) when dividing the

property as described above, we discern no abuse of discretion.

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¶ 22 Third, husband argues that the court didn’t properly consider

the parties’ financial circumstances at the time of the permanent

orders hearing. Specifically, husband argues that the court didn’t

consider that wife was sharing housing expenses with her current

partner, while he was solely responsible for his own expenses.

¶ 23 The court found that, “[g]enerally, [w]ife’s rent cost more than

the mortgage on the home,” and “[t]he parties [were] situated

similarly in terms of financial resources and income. Although

[h]usband recently received an inherited IRA of approximately

$55,000.” Wife testified that, for about one year following the

parties’ separation, she lived with her mother and didn’t pay rent.

After that, and until the end of 2024, she lived in an apartment with

her two children, paying approximately $1,650 per month in rent.

From the end of 2024 until the date of the permanent orders

hearing in February 2025, wife had moved in with her partner and

had been sharing expenses. The rent at that apartment was

$2,200, which meant she was paying approximately $1,100 per

month in rent. Conversely, husband was paying approximately

$1,553 per month for the mortgage, which included taxes and

insurance.

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¶ 24 Although wife’s rent expense at the time of the hearing was

approximately $453 less per month than husband’s mortgage

payment, husband’s argument fails to consider that wife’s monthly

expenses listed on her sworn financial statement were nearly twice

as much as his. Furthermore, husband’s inherited IRA, valued at

$55,000, was set apart as his separate property, whereas wife had

no similar separate property. While the parties’ financial

circumstances at the time of the permanent orders hearing weren’t

precisely the same, the court considered the parties’ relative

monthly incomes and expenses and the value of any separate

property when it made its determination that an equal division of

the home’s equity was fair and equitable. That is what the court

was required to do under section 14-10-113(1)(b)-(c). Accordingly,

we discern no abuse of discretion.

IV. Wife’s Request for Appellate Attorney Fees

¶ 25 Wife argues that husband’s appeal is frivolous or groundless

because he either cites no authority in support of his arguments or

cites inapposite authority and relies on unpublished case law in

violation of our policy concerning the citation of unpublished

opinions.

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¶ 26 While husband didn’t prevail on his appeal, we deny wife’s

request for appellate attorney fees because this isn’t an exceptional

case that warrants such a sanction. See Mission Denv. Co. v.

Pierson, 674 P.2d 363, 365 (Colo. 1984) (“Standards for determining

whether an appeal is frivolous should be directed toward penalizing

egregious conduct without deterring a lawyer from vigorously

asserting his client’s rights.”).

V. Disposition

¶ 27 The judgment is affirmed.

JUDGE DUNN and JUDGE TAUBMAN concur.

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