Dodgers Owner McCourt's Wife Didn't Want to Co-Own Team, Lawyer Testifies
Jamie McCourt, the estranged wife of Los Angeles Dodgers’ owner Frank McCourt, didn’t want the team to be their shared property when the couple moved to California, an estate planning lawyer testified.
Reynolds Cafferata, a witness for Frank McCourt, said he drew up a marital property agreement in 2004 at the request of Jamie McCourt because she wanted to make sure the homes that were in her name wouldn’t become community property when the couple moved to California from Boston and, as such, be exposed to her husband’s business creditors.
Cafferata said today at the couple’s divorce trial in Los Angeles that he discussed with Jamie McCourt the possibility of the businesses being the couple’s common property and the homes her separate property. She rejected that option because, if she was the Dodgers part owner, it would leave the houses more exposed to potential creditors, he testified.
“It was agreed the businesses would be Mr. McCourt’s,” Cafferata said in response to questions from Ryan Kirkpatrick, a lawyer for Frank McCourt.
Jamie McCourt, 56, wants California Superior Court Judge Scott M. Gordon to invalidate the 2004 postnuptial agreement that purports to make the team, valued at $727 million by Forbes, Frank McCourt’s separate property. Her husband, 57, claims she wanted the agreement to shield herself against the debt he took on when he bought the team.
California Law
Jamie McCourt, a former family law attorney in Boston, testified yesterday that she was never told the agreement would nullify her claims to a share of her husband’s businesses if they divorced. She testified that she didn’t understand the implications of California community property law and that she had assumed she was entitled to half the couple’s assets no matter whose name they were in.
Cafferata, a California lawyer, said under cross- examination from Jamie McCourt’s lawyer, Michael Kump, that the only meeting in which he discussed the agreement with her was at Dodgers’ stadium at a lunch in February 2004 to celebrate the closing of the acquisition. The actual time they spent discussing the agreement was about 15 minutes, he said.
The case is McCourt v. McCourt, BD514309, Los Angeles County Superior Court (Los Angeles.)
To contact the reporter on this story: Edvard Pettersson in Los Angeles at epettersson@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David E. Rovella at drovella@bloomberg.net.
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