MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions Decision: 2026 ME 77
Docket: Pen-25-563
Submitted
On Briefs: June 16, 2026
Decided: August 4, 2026
Panel: STANFILL, C.J., and LAWRENCE, DOUGLAS, and TAUB, JJ., and HORTON, A.R.J.
KATHLEEN M. BARRON
v.
JOHN D. BARRON
TAUB, J.
[¶1] John D. Barron appeals from a divorce judgment issued by the
District Court (Bangor, Roberts, A.R.J.) dissolving his marriage to Kathleen M.
Barron. John contends that the court erred in distributing marital property
because it used information from Kathleen’s 2022 financial statement instead
of information from her 2024 financial statement. 1 We agree, vacate the
judgment in part, and remand for further proceedings. We also deny Kathleen’s
motion for sanctions, which argues that John’s appeal is frivolous.
1 Because the parties share the same surname, we refer to them by their given names. 2
I. BACKGROUND
[¶2] Kathleen filed for divorce from John in 2022. In 2022, both Kathleen
and John filed financial statements as required by M.R. Civ. P. 108(c). On
May 15, 2024, prior to the final hearing on May 31, 2024, Kathleen filed an
updated financial statement as required by M.R. Civ. P. 108(d)(4). John did not
file an updated financial statement.
[¶3] At the final hearing, the only issues were spousal support and the
division of marital property. Kathleen entered her 2024 financial statement in
evidence and testified as to its contents. Kathleen also entered John’s
2022 financial statement in evidence. Neither Kathleen’s 2022 financial
statement nor an updated financial statement from John were entered in
evidence.
[¶4] After the hearing, the parties submitted proposed calculations for
the division of their marital property. In her proposed calculation, Kathleen did
not use the information from her testimony or her 2024 financial statement.
Instead, she used both her and John’s 2022 financial statements and calculated
that John owed her an equalization payment of $57,790.17. 2
2 The major difference between Kathleen’s two financial statements is that the value of Kathleen’s
401(k) account grew from $66,399.96 in 2022 to $80,978.18 in 2024. If Kathleen had used the 2024 value of her 401(k) in her calculations rather than the 2022 value, the equalization payment would have been reduced by approximately $7,000.
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[¶5] In its divorce judgment, the trial court distributed the parties’
personal property and, evidently accepting Kathleen’s post-trial calculations,
ordered John to pay Kathleen $57,790.17 to equalize the distribution.3 John
appealed, primarily challenging the trial court’s findings in support of its
calculation of the equalization payment. Barron v. Barron, 2025 ME 51, ¶ 7, 339
A. 3d 782. We concluded that there was “nothing in the divorce judgment that
allow[ed] us to review the required independent judicial assessment of
valuation evidence, which is particularly necessary when the trial court adopts
one party’s calculations in toto.” Id. ¶ 9. We vacated the judgment as to the
distribution of property and remanded for further proceedings. Id. ¶ 10.
[¶6] On remand, the trial court made additional findings. As relevant
here, the court found that Kathleen’s “testimony was credible and consistent
with her financial statements” and that John’s testimony regarding his finances
was not credible. The court further found that the parties’ financial accounts
are “valued at the amounts indicated in the admitted financial statements.” The
court adopted Kathleen’s post-trial valuations of the parties’ property, which
Kathleen had derived from the parties’ 2022 financial statements. The court
3 The court declined to award spousal support to either party.
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did not amend any part of its earlier judgment. John filed a motion for further
findings, which the court denied.
[¶7] John timely appealed. See M.R. App. P. 2B(c)(2). Kathleen seeks
sanctions, see M.R. App. P. 13(f), arguing that John’s appeal is frivolous.
II. DISCUSSION
[¶8] On appeal, John argues that the trial court abused its discretion
when it used Kathleen’s 2022 financial statement (instead of her 2024 financial
statement) to “sanction” John for failing to file an updated financial statement.4
Kathleen argues that John already presented this argument to us in his earlier
appeal, and, citing Twin Island Development Corp. v. Ross, 522 A.2d 901, 902
(Me. 1987), argues that “Maine law does not permit a party to use a successive
appeal to reargue matters already presented, or that could have been
presented, in the first appeal.”
[¶9] Although Kathleen does not refer to the doctrine by name, her
citation to Twin Island Development Corp. suggests that she is arguing that
principles of res judicata foreclose John from challenging the trial court’s use of
4 In a single sentence in the summary of his argument, John asserts that the court erred by “finding
that [John’s] retirement accounts were marital assets.” Because he offers no argument in support of this contention, he has waived the issue. See Mehlhorn v. Derby, 2006 ME 110, ¶ 11, 905 A.2d 290; Alexander, Maine Appellate Practice § 404 at 242 (6th ed. 2022) (“An issue may be viewed as waived or forfeited for lack of appellate development if it is addressed in briefing only in a perfunctory manner that does not demonstrate some effort to articulate the argument.”).
5
Kathleen’s 2022 financial statement. 522 A.2d at 902. Res judicata “has
developed two separate components, issue preclusion and claim preclusion.”
Machias Sav. Bank v. Ramsdell, 1997 ME 20, ¶ 11, 689 A.2d 595. Claim
preclusion, which seems to be what Kathleen is arguing here, “bars relitigation
if[] (1) the same parties or their privies are involved in both actions; (2) a valid
final judgment was entered in the prior action; and (3) the matters presented
for decision in the second action were[] or might have been litigated in the first
action.” Id. (quotation marks omitted).
[¶10] Claim preclusion does not apply here for two reasons. First, there
is no prior action. Rather, Kathleen argues preclusion based on a prior appeal
in this action. Second, there is no final judgment. In the earlier appeal, we
vacated the judgment and remanded for further proceedings but explicitly
declined to reach the issue John raises in this appeal. Barron, 2025 ME 51, ¶¶ 3
n.1, 10, 339 A.3d 782. Res judicata thus does not prohibit John from challenging
the trial court’s use of Kathleen’s 2022 financial statement.5
5 An issue-preclusion argument would have the same outcome, as issue preclusion applies only when an “identical issue was determined by a prior final judgment . . . in a prior proceeding,” and there was no final judgment on the financial-statement issue. Machias Sav. Bank, 1997 ME 20, ¶ 11, 689 A.2d 595 (quotation marks omitted); Barron, 2025 ME 51, ¶ 10, 339 A.3d 782.
Unlike the res judicata doctrine, which applies to proceedings in different cases, the law-of-the-case doctrine applies to proceedings within the same case. In one of its applications, the doctrine “limit[s] relitigation of issues decided . . . in an earlier appeal of the same case.” Alexander, Maine Appellate Practice § 408(b) at 246 (6th ed. 2022); see also Blance v. Alley, 404 A.2d 587, 589 6
[¶11] We now turn to the merits. John’s argument is that the trial court
used Kathleen’s 2022 financial statement to sanction him for failing to file an
updated financial statement. His basis for this contention is unclear. Kathleen
never requested that John be sanctioned, and nothing in the trial court’s
decision suggests that it intended to sanction John. But whatever the court’s
reason for using Kathleen’s 2022 financial statement in dividing marital
property, it was error for the court to do so because the statement was never
admitted in evidence. The only financial statements in the evidentiary record
are Kathleen’s from 2024 and John’s from 2022. Although Kathleen filed her
2022 statement with the court, she never moved for its admission in evidence,
and it is not part of the evidentiary record.
[¶12] Moreover, Kathleen testified that the value of the 401(k) account
was the amount reflected in her 2024 financial statement, thus disavowing the
value reflected in her 2022 financial statement. Because Kathleen’s
2022 financial statement was not in evidence, we must vacate the trial court’s
distribution of assets and calculation of the equalization payment. Although
“we will not substitute our judgment for that of the trial court as to the weight
(Me. 1979). Because in the earlier appeal we did not decide whether the trial court erred in using Kathleen’s 2022 financial statement, the law-of-the-case doctrine does not apply. See Raymond v. Raymond, 480 A.2d 718, 722 (Me. 1984) (“Where the appellate court does not address a particular issue, it does not establish the law of the case on that issue.”).
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or credibility of the evidence,” when there is no evidence in the record to
“rationally support the court’s result,” the court has clearly erred. Sloan v.
Christianson, 2012 ME 72, ¶ 29, 43 A.3d 978. Here, the only evidence regarding
the value of Kathleen’s property was her 2024 financial statement and her
testimony about that statement. Although the trial court purported to base its
valuation of the parties’ financial accounts on “the amounts indicated in the
admitted financial statements,” it then used Kathleen’s 2022 financial
statement, which was never admitted. Because there is no competent evidence
in the record to support the trial court’s distribution of property and calculation
of the equalization payment, we vacate the judgment and remand for further
findings.
[¶13] On remand, the court, in its discretion, may address these issues in
the manner that it deems best, which may include reopening the evidence
should it choose to do so. And because John’s appeal not only is not frivolous
but is successful, we deny Kathleen’s motions for sanctions.
The entry is:
Judgment vacated as to the distribution of
property. The remainder of the judgment is
affirmed. Motion for sanctions denied.
Remanded for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.
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Zachary Brandmeir, Esq., Bangor, for appellant John D. Barron
James C. Munch, III, Esq., Vafiades, Brountas & Kominsky, Bangor, for appellee Kathleen M. Barron
Bangor District Court docket number DIV-2022-149
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY