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STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS


JEANNE T. CONGER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v LAWRENCE D. CONGER, Defendant-Appellant.

UNPUBLISHED December 26, 2000

No. 219373 Ottawa Circuit Court LC No. 97-028425-DO

Before: Smolenski, P.J., and Zahra and Collins, JJ. PER CURIAM. In this divorce proceeding, defendant appeals the circuit court's valuation and distribution of marital assets. We affirm. I. Factual and Procedural Background Both plaintiff and defendant are computer software engineers. They married on December 9, 1992, and divorced on April 19, 1999. During the marriage, defendant owned and operated a corporation called Digital Design and Drafting, Inc., through which he offered software consulting services. At trial, the circuit court was required to determine the corporation's value in order to distribute the marital assets. Plaintiff's expert valued the corporation at approximately $250,000. Defendant's expert utilized several different methods to value the corporation, but ultimately relied on the highest value which his calculations produced, approximately $66,500. The trial court applied a modified version of the holder's interest method and valued the corporation at $90,000. The trial court then distributed the marital assets, awarding plaintiff assets totaling approximately $143,000 and awarding defendant assets totaling approximately $113,000. On appeal, defendant challenges both the valuation of the corporation and the distribution of marital assets. II. Valuation of Defendant's Business Defendant's primary contention on appeal is that the circuit court erroneously applied the holder's interest method to determine the value of defendant's corporation. We disagree. A trial court's factual findings in a divorce matter are reviewed for clear error. Sparks v Sparks, 440 Mich 141, 149-150; 485 NW2d 893 (1992). No single method of valuation need be -1-

uniformly applied to determine the value of business assets for the purpose of distributing marital property. Kowalesky v Kowalesky, 148 Mich App 151, 155; 384 NW2d 112 (1986). "Rather, this Court will review the method applied by the trial court, and its application of that method, to determine if the trial court's valuation was clearly erroneous." Id. at 155-156. A trial court is given great latitude in determining the value of a marital asset, and this Court will not find clear error if the valuation is within the range established by the proofs, even if the circuit court miscalculated individual factors. Jansen v Jansen, 205 Mich App 169, 171; 517 NW2d 275 (1994). We will only find that a trial court's valuation of an asset constitutes clear error if, after reviewing the entire record, we are left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed. Kowalesky, supra at 155; Perrin v Perrin, 169 Mich App 18, 22; 425 NW2d 494 (1988). The holder's interest method is utilized in divorce proceedings to quantify the present value of a business to its proprietor. One commentator described this valuation method as follows: Applying the holder's interest measure of value to a personal service business such as a professional practice is simply an extension of the principles of case specific valuation commonly used by trial courts in dividing marital assets under equitable distribution principles. Stripped to its core, the holder's interest value means that: (1) If an interest in a personal service business is worth considerably more to the owner (a) under the assumption that he or she will continue to operate the business

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Michigan Law