Marriage of Adamopoulos

24CA1274 Marriage of Adamopoulos 06-18-2026

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 24CA1274
Elbert County District Court No. 22DR30072
Honorable Gary M. Kramer, Judge

In re the Marriage of

Wen Hui Huang,

Appellee,

and

Emmanuel Adamopoulos,

Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division II
Opinion by JUDGE BROWN
Harris and Tow, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced June 18, 2026

Harrington Brewster Mahoney Smits, P.C., Joshua C. Sauer, Alexis S. Chavez,
Denver, Colorado, for Appellee

Hampton & Pigott LLP, David J. Pigott, Broomfield, Colorado, for Appellant
¶1 In this dissolution of marriage case involving Emmanuel

Adamopoulos (husband) and Wen Hui Huang (wife), husband

appeals the portions of the district court’s permanent orders

concerning the division of marital property. We affirm.

I. Background

¶2 Husband and wife were married in 2011 and have one child.

Wife filed for dissolution of marriage in 2022. In May 2024, the

district court held a permanent orders hearing to resolve the

parties’ financial matters, as the parties had already reached an

agreement concerning parenting time and decision-making.

¶3 Husband’s appeal centers on the district court’s valuation and

allocation of HappyShakeBricks, LLC (the Company), an

e-commerce store wife founded in 2020 that buys and sells new and

refurbished Lego pieces.

¶4 During the marriage, the parties purchased and maintained

three properties, including a home on Singing Hills Road in Parker,

Colorado (Singing Hills property). In 2021, the parties took out a

home equity line of credit (HELOC) against the Singing Hills

property totaling $300,000. The parties invested $91,795.04 from

the HELOC into the Company.

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¶5 In husband’s initial sworn financial statement, he valued the

Company at $3,000,000. At the permanent orders hearing, he

testified that the value of the Company was $6,000,000, although

he “truly believe[d] the value to be close to $9,000,000.” According

to husband’s “simple math,” if wife were to sell the Company’s

entire inventory of Lego pieces at the average per unit price, the

value of the Company would be about $5,000,000 “on the low end.”

Conversely, wife estimated the value of the Company by subtracting

its total liabilities from its total assets, arriving at $14,051.49.

¶6 After the hearing, the court entered written permanent orders

dividing the marital estate equitably (and roughly equally) between

wife and husband. The court allocated the Company to wife and

largely adopted her valuation methodology, finding that the

Company was worth $21,910.58. The following day, the court

entered a decree of dissolution of marriage. This appeal followed.

II. Analysis

¶7 Husband contends that the district court erred by (1) double

counting the HELOC debt in a manner that benefited wife’s share of

the marital estate; (2) not accounting for the Company’s goodwill

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when determining its value; and (3) failing to consider husband’s

admitted evidence. We reject these contentions.

A. Applicable Law and Standard of Review

¶8 The Uniform Dissolution of Marriage Act governs a district

court’s division of marital property. In re Marriage of Balanson, 25

P.3d 28, 35 (Colo. 2001); § 14-10-113, C.R.S. 2025. The court

must first determine whether an asset or debt is marital and

subject to division or separate and shielded from division. In re

Marriage of Jorgenson, 143 P.3d 1169, 1171-72 (Colo. App. 2006)

(The “[a]llocation of marital debts is in the nature of property

division.”). Once an asset or debt has been deemed to be marital,

the court must value it. Id. at 1172; Balanson, 25 P.3d at 36.

“[T]he court may select the valuation of one party over that of the

other party or make its own valuation, and its decision will be

affirmed if the value is reasonable in light of the evidence as a

whole.” In re Marriage of Medeiros, 2023 COA 42M, ¶ 41.

¶9 Ultimately, the court must divide the marital property in such

proportions as it deems just after considering all relevant factors.

§ 14-10-113(1). The overall property division must be equitable,

but it need not be equal. In re Marriage of Wright, 2020 COA 11,

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¶ 3. “[T]he key to an equitable distribution is fairness, not

mathematical precision.” In re Marriage of Cardona, 2014 CO 3,

¶ 34 (citation omitted). To that end, a district court has “great

latitude to effect an equitable distribution based upon the facts and

circumstances of each case.” Id. (citation omitted).

¶ 10 We review a court’s order dividing a marital estate for an

abuse of discretion. Medeiros, ¶ 28. A court abuses its discretion

when its decision is manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair,

or if it misapplies the law. Id.

B. The District Court Did Not Double Count the HELOC

¶ 11 Husband contends that the district court abused its discretion

by double counting the HELOC — once as a marital debt and again

as a liability reducing the value of the Company. He argues that

the court’s errant double counting unfairly benefited wife in the

distribution of the marital estate. But husband’s argument rests on

a faulty premise. The court did not count any part of the HELOC as

a business liability when valuing the Company. Accordingly, we

reject husband’s contention.

¶ 12 The parties stipulated that the net marital value of the Singing

Hills property was $438,437.16, which they computed by

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subtracting the outstanding balance of the HELOC, $298,562.84,

from the fair market value of the home, $737,000. The court

accepted the parties’ stipulated value, directed the parties to sell the

Singing Hills property, and ordered that the proceeds from the sale

be divided equally between the parties. The marital balance sheet

attached to the permanent orders reflects this allocation. Thus,

husband is correct that the court allocated the HELOC as a marital

debt by subtracting it from the fair market value of the marital

home. But the court did not also reduce the value of the Company

by the portion of the HELOC attributable to it.

¶ 13 In valuing the Company, the court referenced a balance sheet

that wife prepared and submitted into evidence. First, the court

determined the value of the Company’s total assets, including its

checking and savings accounts, existing inventory, depreciation,

and other identified assets. Together, the Company’s total assets

were $254,082.25. But the court noted that, “although [w]ife can

take depreciation for federal tax purposes, it should not be

deducted from the value of the business.” As a result, the court

added depreciation ($7,859.09) back into the Company’s assets,

which then totaled $261,941.34.

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¶ 14 Second, the court determined the value of the Company’s total

current liabilities, including a PayPal credit card balance, the

outstanding cost of labor, an outstanding loan from wife’s brother,

and sales tax collected by the Company. Together, the Company’s

total current liabilities were $240,030.76.

¶ 15 Finally, the court subtracted the Company’s total current

liabilities ($240,030.76) from its total assets ($261,941.34) to

determine the net value of the Company: $21,910.58.

¶ 16 Notably, a liability titled “Loan from HELOC” in the amount of

$91,795.04 — the amount the parties stipulated they took from the

HELOC and invested in the Company — was listed in the balance

sheet as a long-term liability. It was not included in the total current

liabilities figure the court used to compute the Company’s net value.

¶ 17 Because the record makes clear that the district court did not

double count the HELOC as husband argues, we discern no abuse

of discretion. See Medeiros, ¶ 28.

C. The District Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion by Failing to
Assign a Value to the Company’s Goodwill

¶ 18 Husband contends that the district court erred by failing to

value the Company’s goodwill. We disagree.

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¶ 19 The goodwill of a company is an intangible asset reflecting the

value of a business over and above its tangible assets. See In re

Marriage of Goff, 902 P.2d 402, 404-05 (Colo. App. 1994). True,

“[t]he value of goodwill has long been accepted as an attribute of a

business relevant to determining its value.” Medeiros, ¶ 41. But

based on our review of the record, neither party provided the court

with any evidence of the value of the goodwill attributable to the

Company. See In re Marriage of Rodrick, 176 P.3d 806, 815 (Colo.

App. 2007) (the parties are responsible for presenting the court with

the data needed to value marital property).

¶ 20 Husband’s sole mention of goodwill is in a single sentence in

the parties’ joint trial management certificate: “[Wife] has a very

significant amount of reviews, which contribute toward

marketability and goodwill value.” Husband did not offer any

evidence of the Company’s goodwill at the permanent orders

hearing. In fact, the word “goodwill” appears in the hearing

transcript only once in a context entirely unrelated to the goodwill

value of the Company.1

1 Wife testified that she usually buys used Lego pieces from

“[Facebook] marketplace or Goodwill online.”

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¶ 21 To the extent husband argues that his multi-million dollar

valuation of the Company included some component of goodwill

that the court should have recognized and accepted, we disagree for

two reasons. First, husband’s valuation depended on what he

estimated to be the number of Lego pieces in inventory multiplied

by the average sales price of a Lego piece as listed on the

Company’s website. Husband never indicated that his total value

or the per piece price included the value of goodwill.

¶ 22 Second, even if husband’s valuation included goodwill, the

court was not required to accept it. See Medeiros, ¶ 41 (“[T]he court

may select the valuation of one party over that of the other party.”).

The court did not find husband’s testimony about the value of the

Company to be “remotely persuasive.” See In re Marriage of Farr,

228 P.3d 267, 270 (Colo. App. 2010) (it is the trial court’s role to

determine the credibility of witnesses and to resolve conflicting

evidence).

¶ 23 Absent evidence or argument in the record pertaining to the

goodwill value of the Company, we cannot conclude that the court

erred by failing to consider goodwill in its valuation. And because

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the record otherwise supports the court’s valuation of the Company,

we will not disturb it. See Medeiros, ¶ 41.

¶ 24 Yet on appeal, husband argues that the “court’s own ruling

establish[ed] that [the Company] possess[ed] substantial goodwill

that should have been valued as a matter of law.” Husband notes

that wife was qualified to work as a certified public accountant

(CPA) and that the court found her decision to start the Company

instead of practice as a CPA to be a good faith career choice. He

reasons that, “[b]y holding that [w]ife was not voluntarily

underemployed even though she was earning $36,000-$61,000 less

than she could [by working as a CPA], the court in that moment

found by implication that the goodwill of the business was at least

$36,000-$61,000.”

¶ 25 Husband never made this argument to the district court. See

Am. Fam. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Allen, 102 P.3d 333, 340 n.10 (Colo. 2004)

(“Arguments not raised before the trial court may not be raised for

the first time on appeal.”). But it appears that the argument is

based on a perceived inconsistency between the court’s finding that

wife made a good faith career choice to operate the Company

instead of practice as a CPA and its finding that the Company has

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no goodwill value. And a party need not object to the court’s

findings to preserve an appellate challenge to those findings.

C.R.C.P. 52; see People in Interest of D.B., 2017 COA 139, ¶ 30. We

give husband the benefit of the doubt as to preservation because,

even assuming preservation was not required, the argument fails.

¶ 26 Essentially, husband argues that the goodwill value of the

Company is at least as much as wife was willing to forgo in salary

by choosing to run the Company instead of practice as a CPA. Any

other conclusion, husband reasons, should have resulted in the

court finding that wife’s career change was not in good faith. See

§ 14-10-115(5)(b)(I), (III)(B), C.R.S. 2025 (if a parent is voluntarily

underemployed, child support must be calculated based on a

determination of potential income, but a parent may not be deemed

underemployed if the employment is a good faith career choice that

is not intended to deprive a child of support and does not

unreasonably reduce the support available to a child).

¶ 27 In support of his contention, husband provides only a single

(partial) citation to In re Marriage of Bookout, 833 P.2d 800, 803

(Colo. App. 1991), in which the division explained that a court can

“determine the value of goodwill of a professional practice . . . by

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fixing the amount by which the salary level of the owner exceeds

that which would have been earned as an employee by a person

with similar qualifications of education, experience, and capability.”

But husband’s reliance on Bookout is misplaced. There, the

division reviewed a district court’s comparison of a self-employed

therapist’s annual income with the average income of a similarly

situated, salaried therapist. Id. In that context, the division

explained that “[i]f the owner’s actual average income exceeds the

total of the employee norm and a return on the investment in the

physical assets of the business, the excess would be the basis for

evaluating goodwill and is subject to a capitalization factor.” Id.

¶ 28 Here, husband requests that we compare wife’s annual income

from the Company to the annual salary that she could earn as a

CPA, and to equate the difference in wife’s earning capacity between

two distinct positions in two distinct industries with the goodwill

possessed by the Company. Bookout does not address such a

situation. Nor do we see any legal or logical connection between a

finding that wife made a good faith career choice — which the court

based at least in part on the fact that “the parties established [the

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Company] together” during the marriage — and the absence of a

finding that the Company has measurable goodwill.

¶ 29 In the end, we are not persuaded that the district court

abused its discretion by not valuing the Company’s goodwill.2 See

Medeiros, ¶ 28.

D. The District Court Did Not Fail to Consider Husband’s
Admitted Evidence

¶ 30 Husband contends that the district court erred and

compromised “the integrity of the marital property division . . .

when [it] . . . failed to consider key evidence admitted by [h]usband

concerning the scope, assets, and funding of” the Company.

Husband admits this issue is not preserved but asserts that we

should nonetheless review for plain error to avoid a fundamental

miscarriage of justice. See People in Interest of O.J.R., 2025 COA

78, ¶ 37 (“[T]he miscarriage of justice exception is a high bar and

narrow in scope, applying only to limited situations in which an

2 To the extent husband makes additional arguments in his opening

brief related to evidence he allegedly offered in support of a finding
of goodwill, husband failed to make those arguments in the district
court, so they are unpreserved. See Am. Fam. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Allen,
102 P.3d 333, 340 n.10 (Colo. 2004) (“Arguments not raised before
the trial court may not be raised for the first time on appeal.”).

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error by the [trial] court — not otherwise properly preserved for

appeal — results in a grossly unfair outcome . . . .”). Husband

argues that he discovered the issue only after the court compiled

the appellate record and “it became clear that none of his admitted

exhibits were included.”

¶ 31 Husband successfully supplemented the appellate record with

the missing exhibits — which means the exhibits were, in fact, part

of the district court record, see C.A.R. 10(a)(1) (the record on appeal

consists of all documents filed in the trial court case and designated

transcripts), (f)(2) (allowing a party to supplement the record on

appeal “[i]f any material part of the trial court record is omitted or

missing”). But he appears to contend that because the appellate

record did not contain the exhibits initially, the district court must

have “failed to consider [h]usband’s admitted evidence when

dividing the marital estate.”

¶ 32 This case certainly does not present a “‘rare instance[],’

involving ‘unusual’ or ‘special’ circumstances” in which we would

exercise our discretion to review an unpreserved issue in a civil case

for plain error. Robinson v. City & County of Denver, 30 P.3d 677,

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685 (Colo. App. 2000) (citations omitted). But more importantly,

the record belies husband’s contention.

¶ 33 Husband argues that “several categories of relevant, admitted

evidence were either omitted from the court’s record or disregarded

entirely,” but he cites only one exhibit that he claims was ignored

by the court: Exhibit GG, a series of photographs depicting areas of

the marital home set aside to organize and store Lego pieces for the

Company. At the permanent orders hearing, husband presented

Exhibit GG to the court and testified concerning the photos, and

the court admitted the exhibit into evidence. Nevertheless,

husband argues that the “court’s written order contains no

indication that it reviewed or weighed [h]usband’s admitted exhibit.”

¶ 34 But the court’s order notes that “both parties testified and

submitted demonstrative exhibits regarding their preferred

allocation of the marital estate” and that “[t]he [c]ourt considered

each party’s testimony and each party’s exhibits.” The mere fact

that the court did not cite Exhibit GG in its permanent orders does

not mean it failed to consider husband’s evidence. Indeed, because

the court admitted Exhibit GG into evidence at the permanent

orders hearing, we presume it considered the exhibit before issuing

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its final order. See In re Marriage of Collins, 2023 COA 116M, ¶ 21

(“[W]e presume that the court considered all the evidence

presented.”).

¶ 35 The record also reflects that the court credited husband’s

evidence over wife’s evidence on certain issues. For example,

husband inherited a family business that he owns and manages

with his brother. The business owns a plot of land that husband

and his brother lease out for the purpose of operating a gas station.

At the permanent orders hearing, wife argued that the land owned

by the business was worth $800,000. But husband countered that

the business was worth nothing due to environmental and

maintenance concerns related to the property. The court credited

husband’s testimony and determined that the value of husband’s

business was $0.

¶ 36 In the end, “it is the province of the trial court to determine the

credibility of the witnesses and to resolve conflicting evidence.”

Farr, 228 P.3d at 270. Just because the court found wife’s evidence

and testimony concerning the value of the Company to be more

persuasive than husband’s does not mean that the court failed to

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consider husband’s evidence. Nothing in the record supports

husband’s contention.

III. Appellate Attorney Fees

¶ 37 Although wife included a request for attorney fees in her

answer brief, she did not make the request under a separate

heading or provide any legal basis for the award. See C.A.R. 39.1

(“If attorney fees are recoverable for the appeal, the principal brief of

the party claiming attorney fees must include a specific request,

under a separate heading, and must explain the legal and factual

basis for an award of attorney fees.”). Thus, we decline to grant

wife’s request for attorney fees.

IV. Disposition

¶ 38 We affirm the district court’s judgment.

JUDGE HARRIS and JUDGE TOW concur.

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