NANCY LEE RAFFERTY JONES v. DAWN RHODA RAFFERTY (2026)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

Nancy Lee Rafferty-Jones and Dawn Rhoda Rafferty were legally married in 2013 and, after a trial in the Probate and Family Court, were divorced in 2025. On appeal, Dawn ¹ challenges the judge's award of general term alimony to Nancy, and specifically the judge's conclusion that the parties engaged in an economic marital partnership beginning in 1998, see G. L. c. 208, §§ 48, 49 (c). Dawn also challenges the judge's refusal to admit records that she offered after the deadline for the exchange of exhibits had passed, and the judge's handling of assertions made by Nancy's trial counsel. We affirm.

Discussion. 1. Length of the marriage. The Alimony Reform Act (act) permits a judge to award general term alimony, defined as “the periodic payment of support to a recipient spouse who is economically dependent,” based on the length of the parties’ marriage. G. L. c. 208, §§ 48, 49. The length of the marriage is defined as “the number of months from the date of legal marriage to the date of service of a complaint or petition for divorce,” and the act grants a judge broad discretion to “increase the length of the marriage if there is evidence that the parties’ economic marital partnership began during their cohabitation period prior to the marriage.” G. L. c. 208, § 48. See Duff-Kareores v. Kareores, 474 Mass. 528, 534-535 (2016).

To determine whether the parties were participating in an economic marital partnership for the purposes of the act, “the judge must consider all relevant, statutorily specified factors,” including those set forth in G. L. c. 208, § 49 (d) (1). See Duff-Kareores, 474 Mass. at 535-536. Those factors are:

“(i) oral or written statements or representations made to third parties regarding the relationship of the persons;

(ii) the economic interdependence of the couple or economic dependence of 1 person on the other;

(iii) the persons engaging in conduct and collaborative roles in furtherance of their life together;

(iv) the benefit in the life of either or both of the persons from their relationship;

(v) the community reputation of the persons as a couple; or

(vi) other relevant and material factors.”

G. L. c. 208, § 49 (d) (1). The judge must make “express findings indicating that [she] weighed each of the required factors and did not consider any irrelevant factors.” Heins v. Ledis, 422 Mass. 477, 481 (1996). We review the resulting determination for an abuse of discretion. See Duff-Kareores, 474 Mass. at 537.

Dawn contends that the judge never cited G. L. c. 208, § 49 (d) (1), and never undertook the review that it requires. Though the decision does not cite the subsection, the findings must be read as a whole to determine whether the findings show that the judge considered the statutory factors and support the conclusion that she drew. See Duff-Kareores, 474 Mass. at 536-537 (judge's findings of fact supported conclusion, “based on the statutory factors,” that parties were engaged in economic marital partnership).

The parties married on July 6, 2013, and Nancy served her complaint for divorce on September 28, 2021. Here, the judge found that “since 1998, an economic marital partnership formed between the parties during their period of premarital cohabitation,” and set out the basis for that finding period by period: that while residing successively in Florida, in North Carolina, in Pennsylvania, and, from 2009, in Massachusetts, the parties “both contributed to their shared expenses from their respective incomes and held themselves out as a couple”; that in June 2004, they signed a notarized affidavit swearing to Dawn's employer that they resided together in a permanent “sole partnership relationship” and were “jointly responsible for the household's financial obligations”; and that Dawn's claim that the affidavit served “the sole purpose of enabling Nancy's coverage under Dawn's then current health insurance coverage” was not credible. The judge further found that during the earlier years of the relationship Dawn reported taxable income “on average, more than five times” that of Nancy's, and that the parties moved to accommodate Nancy's new position in another city, leaving Dawn unable to complete the coursework required for a college degree. And in her rationale the judge tied those facts to her conclusion, stating that the parties’ “premarital cohabitation while in a committed relationship, coupled with their respective contributions to an economic partnership since 1998,” led her to treat the length of the marriage as approximately twenty-three years.

Those findings bear on the parties’ representations to third parties and their reputation as a couple, their economic interdependence and Nancy's economic dependence on Dawn, their collaborative conduct in furtherance of a life together, and the benefit each derived from the relationship. See G. L. c. 208, § 49 (d) (1) (i)-(v). They are supported by the record, including Dawn's own testimony that when the parties moved to Florida, Nancy was “relying on me for my savings, relying on me to rent an apartment,” and a stipulation by Nancy's counsel that Nancy “had been dependent upon [Dawn] for income.” See Connor v. Benedict, 481 Mass. 567, 571, 575 (2019) (judge made findings that parties cohabited for over six years prior to marriage during which time wife relied on husband's health insurance and salary, and husband represented wife as “domestic partner” to employer). This is not a finding that recites a few facts of cohabitation, announces a conclusion, and leaves us unable to determine whether the balance of the findings played any part in it. The judge's findings are more than sufficient to support her conclusion of the existence and duration of an economic marital partnership between the parties predating the parties’ legal marriage.

Dawn's remaining arguments on this issue fail as a matter of law. That the parties held no jointly titled property and but one joint financial account does not preclude the conclusion that they functioned as an economic marital partnership. See Duff-Kareores, 474 Mass. at 536 (once married couple resumed economic marital partnership after divorce and remarriage though parties maintained separate bank accounts and husband continued paying wife alimony). Nor does G. L. c. 207, § 4, which renders void a marriage contracted while a former spouse is living, bear on the question; an economic marital partnership “resembles, but is not equivalent to, a legal marriage.”² Duff-Kareores, 474 Mass. at 534. And the judge was not required to credit Dawn's testimony that the parties had been roommates only, or to reject Nancy's testimony in its entirety because she found Nancy not credible on several other contested issues. The credibility of a trial witness “is quintessentially the domain of the trial judge.” Johnston v. Johnston, 38 Mass. App. Ct. 531, 536 (1995). A finder of fact can believe all, some, or none of a witness's testimony. Commonwealth v. Gomes, 459 Mass. 194, 203 (2011).

2. Evidentiary rulings. The judge denied four motions by which Dawn sought to introduce records of a California criminal case that she contended involved Nancy, offered to contradict Nancy's denial that she had been imprisoned. Dawn also challenges the judge's acceptance of fingerprint materials that Nancy submitted after the trial.

In divorce cases, “[t]rial judges have ‘extensive discretion ․ with respect to both the process of discovery and the admission of evidence.’ ” Salten v. Ackerman, 64 Mass. App. Ct. 868, 875 (2005), quoting Beaupre v. Cliff Smith & Assocs., 50 Mass. App. Ct. 480, 485 (2000). That discretion extends to a motion to admit additional evidence after the evidence has closed. See Kerr v. Palmieri, 325 Mass. 554, 557 (1950). See also Mitchell v. Mitchell, 62 Mass. App. Ct. 769, 776 (2005) (relief ordinarily not granted on newly discovered evidence that tends only to impeach credibility of witness). We do not discern an abuse of that discretion. In any event, Dawn has not shown prejudice. The judge did not rely on Nancy's fingerprint materials, and she noted that she already had before her Court Activity Record Information indicating that “a person identified as Nancy Lee Jones was convicted on several felony counts ․ and committed to prison,” that Nancy's credibility on the subject “was already eroded during her trial testimony,” and that the additional evidence “will not change the outcome of the divorce trial.” Dawn thus obtained the benefit of the impeachment she sought from evidence already before the judge, and the records she offered were in any event “available well before the deadline for exchange of proposed exhibits.”

3. Counsel's assertions. Dawn last contends that the judge was required to address assertions by Nancy's trial counsel that Dawn had forged Nancy's signature in order to obtain prison records. Statements of counsel are not evidence, as the judge observed during the trial, and nothing in her findings rests on them. Dawn identifies no authority requiring a judge to make findings concerning the accuracy of an advocate's assertions, and G. L. c. 221, § 40, does not require such findings. To the extent that we do not address Dawn's other contentions, they “have not been overlooked. We find nothing in them that requires discussion.” Commonwealth v. Domanski, 332 Mass. 66, 78 (1954).

Judgment of divorce nisi dated July 2, 2025, affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Because the parties have similar surnames, we refer to them by their first names.

2.   Nothing in the act provides that one cannot form an economic partnership with another while that other person is still legally married to someone else. In any event, assuming without deciding that Dawn is correct that she could not have formed an economic partnership with Nancy because Dawn was married to someone else until about 1999 or 2000, there would be no prejudice because the economic partnership would still be more than twenty years under the act. See G. L. c. 208, § 49 (c); Sbrogna v. Sbrogna, 92 Mass. App. Ct. 639, 641-642 (2018) (durational caps “do not apply where the parties have been married more than twenty years).