Full Opinion

Cite as 2026 Ark. App. 437 ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS DIVISION IV No. CV-25-346 ANUPAMA TAGGARSE Opinion Delivered September 23, 2026 APPELLANT APPEAL FROM THE SEBASTIAN V. COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT, FORT SMITH DISTRICT AMIT TAGGARSE [NO. 66FDR-24-15] APPELLEE HONORABLE R. GUNNER DELAY, JUDGE AFFIRMED MIKE MURPHY, Judge Appellant Anupama Taggarse appeals from a Sebastian County Circuit Court divorce decree granting her a divorce from appellee Amit Taggarse. On appeal, Anupama argues that the court erred by refusing to grant her a continuance to complete discovery; failing to dismiss Amit’s divorce claim for failure to corroborate grounds and residency; granting Anupama the divorce because there was no counterclaim for divorce pending; and not awarding more and permanent alimony. We affirm. I. Facts and Procedural History The parties married in India in February 2003. Anupama had her own successful business that she left to follow Amit to the United States for his medical training and career, which included a period at Mayo Clinic. During this time, she was diagnosed with autoimmune and pulmonary conditions. Amit is a cardiac surgeon. From 2020 until June 2024, Amit lived in McAllen, Texas. He moved back to Forth Smith for a job at Baptist Health. The parties share two children, and custody was not contested. At the time of the hearing, only one child was still a minor. A temporary hearing was conducted on June 6, 2024, wherein Amit’s current income and debts were presented. The evidence established that he has rental income from five apartments in India. Anupama managed these apartments until Amit moved to Texas. Amit described owning a fifty-acre Texas ranch purchased three years earlier for $500,000 and owner financed. He testified that the ranch has ten acres dedicated to a nonprofit mentoring program, “Bloom Parks and Projects,” to which he had donated between $20,000 and $30,000 the previous year. He also testified that he owned a construction company, BGHE, LLC, with “almost zero” income and managed an India-based charitable society he occasionally contributed to. Anupama testified she had been the children’s primary caregiver since Amit relocated to Texas. She encouraged counseling between Amit and their minor daughter. Anupama presented exhibits of her monthly expenses. Following the hearing, the court awarded Anupama temporary possession of the marital home located in Fort Smith. Amit was made responsible for the mortgage on the home and the adjoining one-acre lot and was ordered to maintain health coverage for Anupama and the minor child. The court ordered the parties to close their joint Arvest account and to equally divide the balance. It ordered forty acres of the ranch to be listed for 2 sale with the proceeds deposited into the court registry. It awarded the parties joint legal custody with standard visitation for Amit and a ten-day uninterrupted summer block for each parent. The order included a mutual nondisparagement order. Child support was set at $1,835 a month based on Amit’s income capped at $30,000 a month under Administrative Order No. 10 and minimum wage imputed to Anupama. The court ordered $5,000 a month in temporary spousal support to Anupama, who remained responsible for utilities and upkeep of the marital home, along with temporary attorney’s fees of $2,500. In September 2024, between the temporary hearing and trial, Anupama’s original counsel withdrew without having conducted any discovery, and the September 17, 2024 trial setting was continued and reset to January 7. New counsel entered an appearance on October 8, 2024, served written discovery the same day, and unsuccessfully moved for a discovery- related attorney ad litem on November 27. On December 2, on Anupama’s behalf, counsel moved to compel outstanding discovery. On December 4, she moved for contempt and for her first continuance, citing prior counsel’s total inaction and the roughly ninety-two days between new counsel’s entry and the January 7 trial date. The court denied the first continuance motion on December 12. On December 16, after a hearing, the court granted the motion to compel and ordered Amit to fully respond within ten days. Amit’s deposition, originally noticed for December 16, was rescheduled to December 27 to accommodate a trip he took to India that month. A final hearing was conducted over two days in January 2025. The court first took up Anupama’s pending motions. First, the court denied her request for a continuance based on 3 Amit’s amended complaint. That motion argued that Amit had amended his complaint to add a new divorce ground four business days before trial. The court then addressed Anupama’s concern that she had not been provided discovery. She claimed to not have any tax returns, checking account, life insurance, and 401(k) information. The court referenced the December 16 motion-to-compel hearing three weeks earlier and noted that Anupama waited until the morning of trial to raise the issue again. In denying her motion to continue, the circuit court stated, We are going forward today. This case has been pending for a year. You stated at the motion to compel hearing that your client needed relief. I want to try to get your client some relief. If we push this case out, no one’s getting any relief. This case has been pending since -- . . . January of 2024. This case needs to be heard. These people need a resolution to their lives. And if I feel at the end of the cases that we need to keep the record open for additional information, we can do that. If I don’t feel like I have enough information at the conclusion of this case, I’ll leave it open and we’ll get another court date on the docket, but these individuals need relief, and I think they both want relief because you’ve told me your client wants some relief. If we don’t have a hearing today, your client gets no more relief. Amit testified that the parties married on February 13, 2003, and separated January 2020 when he relocated to Texas. He said that they had not cohabited since; he sought divorce on the ground of eighteen months’ continuous separation without cohabitation, corroborated by an affidavit from his uncle, Ajit Hemmady. He testified he had no objection to Anupama having sole custody and described getting counseling started as a priority. Amit testified that he moved back to Fort Smith for his new employment at Baptist Health where he has a three-year contract paying $700,000 the first year and $750,000 in years two and three. According to his tax returns, his 2023 income was approximately 4 $507,801. He proposed selling all marital real properties (the Fort Smith marital home with the additional acre and the Texas ranch) and applying the proceeds to marital debt. He testified that he loaned his childhood friend, Batchu, $105,000 and expects to receive repayment, which he offered to treat as marital property and divide. On cross-examination, Amit admitted withdrawing $20,000 on January 25, 2024, $100,000 on October 17, 2024, and $50,000 on December 5, 2024, from his 401(k) without Anupama’s knowledge and after he was under court order not to deplete any marital assets. The $105,000 loan to Batchu had funded Batchu’s purchase of 43.34 acres on Glass Plant Road in Fort Smith, property Amit now leases. He admitted an undisclosed $500,000 whole- life policy with cash value on the parties’ daughter despite having represented in discovery that he held only term policies; an undisclosed life-insurance policy; and the omission of his Baptist Health 403(b) account from his proposed property division. Amit admitted he had an ongoing relationship with a man for approximately two years that had begun during the marriage and ended before he filed for divorce. He testified that his boyfriend lives with him and that he pays his living expenses, a truck payment and insurance, and a $1,000 monthly “retainer” characterized as compensation for developing the Glass Plant Road property. Amit further admitted putting roughly $42,000 to $48,000 into the Bloom Parks nonprofit and more than $10,000 into Bloom Gardens, LLC, from personal funds in 2024, some of it spent on items benefiting himself, and he confirmed Anupama has no ownership interest in or access to either entity. 5 Amit testified that the Texas ranch had appreciated from the $500,000 purchase price in December 2020 to an appraised $1.1 million, attributing the increase to his own labor and marital funds and conceding it as marital property. Following his case-in-chief, Anupama moved to dismiss Amit’s complaint because no witness independent of Amit corroborated his grounds or residency; and the affidavit of a party’s own relative is not a substitute for cross-examinable, corroborating testimony in a contested case. The court denied the motion at that time, stating it might take the issue up again at the conclusion of the case, and it proceeded to Anupama’s case. Ananya, the parties’ daughter and a high school senior, testified she lives with Anupama. She testified she had twice been accepted to a prestigious program in McAllen, but the family never relocated because Amit did not want them to. She attributed her mother’s worsening lung condition, including a newly discovered nodule, in part to Amit’s “constant abuse” and testified her mother needs full-time care. When pressed to specify timing of abuse, she testified there had been no physical domestic violence within the last five years, but she maintained there had been ongoing emotional and financial abuse. The parties’ son, Aditya, a college student majoring in finance, testified Amit has been funding his education. He described a volatile parental relationship. Aditya cast himself as peacekeeper since age five and testified to an incident in which his father pushed his mother away when she followed him during an argument. He testified that his father had promised but failed to consistently pay down roughly $20,000 in credit-card debt that he accrued on Aditya’s credit card. 6 Before testimony resumed for day two of the hearing, Anupama raised the issue of outstanding discovery and stated that a subpoena to Arvest Bank had been quashed the day before as untimely and that an affidavit supporting the motion to quash referenced seventeen accounts when discovery had produced only the single joint Arvest account. Amit responded that the joint account had been disclosed and addressed since the June 2024 temporary hearing; that Amit does not, in fact, have seventeen accounts; and that complete tax returns had been produced. The court found no showing that Amit had withheld anything in his possession, observed that defense counsel could have subpoenaed Arvest in June or October 2024, declined to permit what it characterized as a fishing expedition, denied a renewed oral continuance motion, and ordered the parties to proceed. Amit’s CPA, Michael Schluterman, was called as the next witness. He confirmed Amit’s gross monthly income of approximately $58,492.34. He also confirmed that Amit is the primary annual donor—from $20,000 to possibly as much as $35,000 in one year—to the Bloom Parks nonprofit. Anupama testified that she relocated to Fort Smith in September 2017. She testified that Amit admitted to her in January 2020 that he is a homosexual and that he disclosed the relationship to her in February 2024. She testified that Amit had dragged her by her hair, held her down for twenty to thirty minutes while she was “gasping for air,” and thrown hot coffee at her in front of the children. She also said that he had a longstanding pornography habit. Following this testimony, Amit stated he would waive any contest to grounds generally but specifically objected when Anupama moved to amend the pleadings to conform to the 7 proof and grant a divorce on grounds of adultery. The court deferred ruling on the specific ground until the close of the case. Anupama testified that she considered the date of separation to be January 18, 2024, the date she was served with divorce papers, rather than January 2020 as Amit had testified. She testified that the money used to buy the Texas ranch in December 2020 came from the joint Mayo Employees Federal Credit Union account, describing it as entirely marital funds, and that Amit later withdrew $10,000 she had borrowed from her uncle specifically to avoid depleting the 401(k), of which $5,000 remains unpaid. She characterized the Bloom entities as “a party place . . . an alcohol-guzzling-down hub, weekend-partying hub, and a gay hub” and asked that all Bloom assets be treated as marital and divided equally. She alleged that Amit, who had moved to Texas in 2020, repeatedly delayed the family’s planned move to join him in McAllen and then blocked their daughter’s transfer to a prestigious school there because “he already had a young boyfriend”; he threatened a restraining order if they came to McAllen. She requested permanent alimony sufficient to cover a retirement-savings gap of roughly $6,500 a month as identified by a financial consultant along with life and health insurance and a vehicle, given that she has no income of her own. She additionally asked to remain in the marital home for health reasons. Following testimony, Anupama renewed her motion to conform the pleadings to the proof and grant a divorce on grounds of adultery; requested that the decree be filed with a higher-confidentiality designation given the children and sensitive testimony; and argued, 8 among other things, for permanent alimony given the twenty-two-year marriage, Anupama’s health, and Amit’s ability to pay. The court found that the parties had married on February 13, 2003, and separated in January 2024 and granted Anupama a divorce on the ground of general and personal indignities. It awarded custody to Anupama by agreement with continuing reunification counseling between Amit and the parties’ daughter, Ananya; and ordered all marital real properties listed for sale within thirty days with proceeds divided equally and the Texas land sold as is rather than partitioned, subject to a six-month auction fallback if unsold. It divided the retirement accounts equally, awarded Anupama $52,000 from the Batchu loan and lease receivable, found the Bloom entities to be marital assets and ordered that they be sold and the proceeds divided equally, and ordered the vehicles sold with proceeds divided equally. The court set alimony at $5,000 a month until the Fort Smith home sells; thereafter, alimony will increase to $10,000 a month for ten years and is modifiable on a finding of a change of circumstances. It awarded Anupama $10,000 in attorney’s fees and stated that any motions not specifically ruled on that day were denied. This appeal followed. II. Continuance Anupama first argues the circuit court abused its discretion by denying her requests for a continuance. A motion for continuance shall be granted only upon a showing of good cause. Elliot v. Hale, 2021 Ark. App. 503, at 5. We will not reverse the denial of a continuance absent an abuse of discretion amounting to a denial of justice. Id. A circuit court abuses its 9 discretion when it acts improvidently and without due consideration. Id. The appellant bears the burden of showing that the denial was an abuse of discretion, and to do so she must show that she was prejudiced by it. Id. An appellant must show how the denial actually affected the outcome; prejudice is not presumed. Sanders v. State, 317 Ark. 328, 340, 878 S.W.2d 391, 398 (1994). Anupama acknowledges that the case could not be tried in a single day and that she was able to seek additional discovery during the three-week recess before the second day of trial. She nevertheless argues she was prejudiced because (1) she did not have adequate time to obtain records from Arvest Bank; (2) she could not obtain more information about the Glass Plant Road property in which she claims she “likely had an interest”; and (3) she lacked adequate time to refute the grounds for divorce alleged in Amit’s amended complaint. We disagree. Regarding the bank records, Anupama cannot establish that the denial of time to collect these records could have affected the outcome of the case. The Arvest subpoena itself was quashed on a timing and burden rationale because it was served January 22 for a January 24 hearing. Arvest’s own affidavit estimated that compliance would require roughly ten and a half hours of labor it did not have time to perform. Because the subpoena was quashed on that basis rather than on the merits, the underlying question of what those records might have shown was never resolved. It would be speculative to presume that the Arvest records would have revealed hidden accounts. Additionally, the circuit court had the discretion to weigh Amit’s credibility that he does not have additional accounts and that his complete tax 10 returns had been produced. Importantly, the circuit court also observed that Anupama could have subpoenaed Arvest as early as the June 2024 temporary hearing or when new counsel entered the case in October, both well before trial. As to the Glass Plant Road property, Anupama contends the “lease” is, in substance, a disguised purchase funded with money Amit withdrew from his 401(k) and advanced to his friend Batchu. She developed that theory at trial through cross-examination without need of additional discovery, and the circuit court agreed because it awarded her half of the note receivable from the Batchu loan and lease. That result undercuts any claim of continuing prejudice because whatever discovery she lacked going into trial, she litigated the issue fully and prevailed on it. Last, concerning her argument about the amended-complaint grounds and the Hemmady affidavit, Amit was not granted a divorce on any ground, and the affidavit’s central factual premise that the parties separated in January 2020 was squarely rejected by the circuit court’s own finding that they separated in January 2024. Whatever unfairness there was in springing a new ground and a same-week corroborating affidavit on Anupama, it did not cost her anything in the result. Under these facts, we cannot say the circuit court abused its discretion in denying the motions for continuance. The record shows Anupama waited until the eleventh hour to attempt to obtain bank records, and she obtained the substance of what she said she needed through cross-examination and argument at the trial. Additionally, Amit was denied a divorce on every ground the late amendment and affidavit were meant to support. 11 III. Counterclaim Next, we address Anupama’s argument that the court erred in granting her a divorce. Even though this is her third argument, it is dispositive to her second argument, so we address it now. In response to Amit’s original complaint for divorce, Anupama filed a counterclaim. Amit filed an amended complaint for divorce on December 30, 2024, and Anupama answered but did not reassert her counterclaim for divorce. Thus, she contends, at the time of trial, she did not have an active claim for divorce, and the court therefore had nothing of hers to grant. We disagree. Anupama’s own conduct at trial forecloses her argument. Neither party ever raised the “no pending counterclaim” problem below; both sides litigated the case through closing arguments as though Anupama’s claims were live and being decided by consent. The morning of trial, Anupama asked that the amended complaint for divorce be struck or that a continuance be granted. Amit responded that he told her at the deposition that he was willing to pull the amended language. Anupama’s counsel then said, “[A]t no point in the deposition did I say that she did not want to proceed with her divorce.” The court then told the parties directly: “[I]f he decides to go forward on his case, then he can. If he doesn’t or if you want to go forward on your counterclaim, you can, and at the end of the case, I will make a ruling on who’s granted the divorce.” Anupama’s counsel did not correct the court or say no counterclaim was pending; she pivoted straight to her request for a continuance. 12 Later, when ruling on the first motion to dismiss, the court repeated, “[Y]ou may start on your counterclaim, whichever one you want to do.” Anupama again did not offer correction. At another point during the hearing when the court asked Amit’s counsel directly whether he was contesting grounds, he answered, “No. . . . I will waive it, yes.” And most tellingly, at the close of all evidence, Anupama’s counsel renewed her request that the pleadings be modified to conform to the proof, and Amit’s counsel responded: “I have no problem with that, Your Honor, on the grounds. I’m assuming she’s going to be awarded the grounds on what she’s requested, so I don’t have any problem with that.” The court then awarded Anupama a divorce on the grounds of general and personal indignities. Again, she did not object or make any comment regarding her award of the divorce. It is well settled under the doctrine of invited error that an appellant may not complain on appeal that the circuit court erred if the appellant induced, consented to, or acquiesced in that action. Shrable v. Shrable, 2025 Ark. App. 454, at 18, 724 S.W.3d 605, 615. Moreover, Arkansas Rule of Civil Procedure 15 provides that when issues not raised by the pleadings are tried by express or implied consent of the parties, it is treated as if raised in the pleadings, and the failure to amend does not affect the result of the trial of that issue. Here, at no time during the trial did Anupama inform the circuit court that she did not want a divorce. Instead, her request for a divorce was presented in court, and she moved to conform the pleadings to the proof. Amit expressly waived any contest to her grounds and did not object to the presentation of her corroborating witnesses. Thus, she cannot now argue on appeal that the circuit court’s decision to grant her the divorce constitutes error. 13 To support her argument, Anupama relies on Nameloc, Inc. v. Jack, Lyon & Jones, P.A., 362 Ark. 175, 181, 208 S.W.3d 129, 133 (2005), to argue that because she was plainly aware of the counterclaim having already pleaded it once, the omission was an “intentional omission” that effectively withdrew it. However, Nameloc is distinguishable. In Nameloc, the Arkansas Supreme Court held that a defendant was not entitled to file an amended or supplemental pleading asserting an omitted compulsory counterclaim where the defendant waited until thirty minutes before trial to file it and had known of the potential claim when filing previous pleadings. Anupama purports that this means an already-pleaded counterclaim automatically disappears from a case when a later responsive pleading, filed after the opponent has amended his pleadings, does not repeat it verbatim. However, as explained above, her own trial conduct waived or foreclosed this argument regardless of this potential pleading technicality. IV. Amit’s Corroboration of Grounds and Residency We now turn to Anupama’s argument that the court erred by not dismissing Amit’s divorce claim for failure to corroborate grounds and residency. She argues the only corroboration Amit offered for his own residency and grounds was the affidavit of his uncle Hemmady, which was insufficient. However, any deficiency was harmless. As noted above, Amit was not awarded a divorce on any ground, so whatever the corroboration defect in his complaint, it produced no relief for him to unwind. Nor did the deficiency in Amit’s corroboration taint the evidence or the trial itself. Anupama’s own claim was independently and adequately corroborated, as discussed in the counterclaim section above. We therefore 14 hold that the circuit court’s failure to dismiss Amit’s complaint, even if erroneous, was harmless. IV. Spousal Support Last, Anupama contends that the court erred by awarding her rehabilitative rather than permanent alimony and that she should have received more. The court set alimony at $5,000 a month until the Fort Smith home sells and increased the amount to $10,000 a month thereafter for ten years, with the award modifiable on a showing of change of circumstances. An award of alimony is a decision within the sound discretion of the circuit court, and we will not reverse the circuit court’s decision to award alimony absent an abuse of that discretion. Foster v. Foster, 2016 Ark. 456, at 15, 506 S.W.3d 808, 817–18. The purpose of alimony is to rectify the parties’ economic imbalances in earning power and standard of living in light of the particular facts in each case. Hartman v. Hartman, 2024 Ark. App. 194. Alimony is not awarded as a reward to the receiving spouse or as punishment of the spouse against whom it is charged. Id. The primary factors to be considered in determining whether to award alimony are the financial need of one spouse and the other spouse’s ability to pay. Id. In addition, the following secondary factors should be considered: (1) the financial circumstances of both parties; (2) the couple’s past standard of living; (3) the value of jointly owned property; (4) the amount and nature of the parties’ income, both current and anticipated; (5) the extent and nature of the resources and assets of each of the parties; (6) the amount of income of each that is spendable; (7) the earning ability and capacity of each 15 party; (8) the property awarded or given to one of the parties, either by the court or the other party; (9) the disposition made of the homestead or jointly owned property; (10) the condition of health and medical needs of both parties; (11) the duration of the marriage; and (12) the amount of child support. Id. Concerning the term “rehabilitative” alimony, the decree itself never uses the word “rehabilitative” and contains no finding that Anupama is expected to become self-supporting by the end of the ten-year term, which is ordinarily the premise for treating an award as rehabilitative rather than permanent. The award’s modifiability on a showing of change of circumstances further undercuts any claim that the ten-year term operates as a rigid cutoff rather than a flexible arrangement that can be revisited. See Matthews v. Matthews, 2009 Ark. App. 400, 322 S.W.3d 15 (holding the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in ordering increase in alimony when spouse presented credible evidence that her medical condition had gotten worse since the last hearing). Concerning Anupama’s challenge to the amount awarded, she essentially contends that Amit can afford to pay more, so she is entitled to more. However, Amit’s ability to pay more does not in itself entitle Anupama to more support because ability to pay is but only one of two primary factors considered. Additionally, there is evidence to support the circuit court’s findings, and it is apparent that the circuit court did not act thoughtlessly and without due consideration when awarding alimony. Mason v. Mason, 2017 Ark. App. 683, at 6–7, 536 S.W.3d 657, 661–62. The court stated it considered the factors in awarding alimony, including but not limited to, both parties’ ability to earn and Anupama’s need for alimony 16 and her health issues. Further, the award is properly read alongside the balance of the equal division of retirement accounts, Anupama’s $52,000 recovery from the Batchu loan and lease, her receipt of one of the apartments in India, and the ordered sale of the marital home and Texas ranch, which the circuit court was entitled to weigh together with the monthly figure under the disposition-of-property factor. Accordingly, we cannot say the circuit court abused its discretion in the amount or duration of the alimony award, and we affirm. Affirmed. GLADWIN and THYER, JJ., agree. Edwin G. Dooley, Jr., for appellant. Gean, Gean & Gean, by: Roy Gean III, for appellee. 17