In Tran v. Nguyen (Nov. 24, 2015), the 14th Houston Court of Appeals addressed a divorce where the husband was in jail for sexual assault of the wife’s child from a prior relationship.
In a split opinion, with a dissent, the Court of Appeals made several holdings in pertinent part: (1) denial of husband’s request for continuance was not error; (2) denial of visitation for husband with his two daughters was not error; (3) calculation of child support via award of equity in martial residence to wife was not error; and (4) disproportionate division of property in favor the wife was not error.
The dissent by Chief Justice Kem Thompson Frost would have reversed the child support award, which was based more on what the husband would have earned if he was not in jail vs. the actual circumstances of what he could earn in jail.