Denley v. Denley

In Denley v. Denley, 38 Conn. App. 349, 661 A.2d 628 (1995), the plaintiff also sought a modification of alimony, arguing that because he had lost an important client his income had decreased substantially. Denley v. Denley, supra, 38 Conn. App. at 350. The court denied the motion for modification based, in part, on its inclusion of the profit that the plaintiff had received through the redemption of stock options that had been awarded to him at the time of the dissolution. Id. This court agreed with the plaintiff that "because he was awarded the stock options as property in the dissolution decree, any money that he received from the exercise of those stock options was simply a conversion of an asset and should not have been considered income by the trial court for purposes of assessing whether there had been a substantial change in circumstances." Id. at 353. The Court held that the trial court improperly included the redemption of the stock options in income, reasoning that the "mere exchange of an asset awarded as property in a dissolution decree, for cash, the liquid form of the asset, does not transform the property into income." Id.