Canter v. Canter

2026 UT App 168 THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS CHAD CANTER, Appellant and Cross-appellee, v. JANE CANTER, Appellee and Cross-appellant. Opinion No. 20241180-CA Filed November 5, 2026 Third District Court, Salt Lake Department The Honorable Robert P. Faust No. 224902987 Ryan Rudd, Meagan Rudd, Courtney Cooper, and Spencer Felton, Attorneys for Appellant and Cross-appellee Julie J. Nelson, Skylar Walker, and Kayla Quam, Attorneys for Appellee and Cross-appellant JUDGE RYAN M. HARRIS authored this Opinion, in which JUDGES JOHN D. LUTHY and AMY J. OLIVER concurred. HARRIS, Judge: ¶1 After a bench trial in this divorce case, the trial court—as relevant here—ordered Chad Canter to pay $2,448 in monthly child support and $8,623 in monthly alimony to his ex-wife, Jane Canter, and it also ordered each party to pay their own attorney fees. Both parties appeal, each challenging different parts of the court’s orders. Chad takes issue with the court’s child support and alimony awards, challenging the court’s decision to allow Jane’s financial expert to testify and, in addition, asserting that the court incorrectly assessed Jane’s expenses as well as the parties’  Canter v. Canter respective incomes. 1 For her part, Jane challenges some of the court’s orders relating to attorney fees. She acknowledges that, all else being equal, it was not an abuse of discretion under these circumstances for the court to have ordered each party to bear their own fees, but she contends that the court—through some of its other decisions regarding property division—effectively (and in contravention of its own order) required her to pay some of Chad’s fees without making the findings necessary to support such an award. ¶2 We reject Chad’s arguments and affirm the court’s orders regarding child support and alimony. But we find merit in Jane’s arguments regarding attorney fees, and we therefore remand this matter with instructions for the trial court to align its attorney fees order with its property division orders. BACKGROUND Pre-trial Proceedings ¶3 In May 2022, after being married to Jane for more than twenty-four years, Chad moved out of the parties’ marital house and petitioned for divorce. Chad and Jane had four children together, but by the time of trial, only one of them was a minor, and that child is now an adult. Around the time of separation, Chad—in a self-described effort to divide “the parties’ total marital checking and savings account balances”— transferred nearly $48,000 to Jane from one of the parties’ marital accounts. 1. Throughout this opinion, “we follow our standard practice of referring to the parties by their first names when they share the same surname, with no disrespect intended by the apparent informality.” See Miner v. Miner, 2021 UT App 77, ¶ 2 n.2, 496 P.3d 242 (cleaned up). 20241180-CA 2 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter ¶4 Soon after Chad filed the divorce petition, Jane filed a motion for temporary orders, asking that Chad be ordered to pay child support and alimony. Chad filed an opposition to Jane’s motion, claiming that Jane had no need for alimony because, since the filing of the petition, he had been paying and would “continue to pay the necessary marital expenses . . . , including mortgage, utilities, insurance, vehicles, etc.” After oral argument on the matter, a domestic relations commissioner entered temporary orders requiring Chad to pay Jane temporary child support in the amount of $2,039 per month and temporary alimony in the amount of $6,042 per month. The commissioner also ordered that the parties’ then-minor child remain in the marital house with Jane but that the parties “have joint legal custody.” ¶5 The case proceeded toward trial, and on the day case-in- chief expert disclosures were due, Jane disclosed to Chad that she had retained a “real estate appraiser and consultant.” In her disclosure document, Jane did not designate an accounting expert. That same day, Chad filed an expert witness disclosure document of his own, designating three retained expert witnesses: a real estate appraiser, a vocational expert (Vocational Expert), and a forensic accountant (Chad’s Accountant). Both parties filed documents electing to receive written reports from the opposing parties’ experts instead of opting to take their depositions. And both parties timely produced those reports. ¶6 Later, on or before her deadline for designating rebuttal experts, Jane disclosed to Chad that she had retained a forensic accountant of her own (Jane’s Accountant) as a “designated rebuttal expert” who would “rebut the expert report of” Chad’s Accountant regarding the “income for the parties,” the “parties’ monthly needs,” and “the division of the marital estate.” In response, Chad filed a document electing to receive a written report from Jane’s Accountant instead of opting to take his deposition. Jane timely produced that report. 20241180-CA 3 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter ¶7 Chad then filed a certificate of readiness for trial, representing to the court that the “case [was] ready for trial” and that “[a]ll required discovery ha[d] been completed.” Later, a pretrial conference was held and a trial date was set. ¶8 As trial approached, both parties timely filed pretrial disclosures. As relevant here, Chad listed Chad’s Accountant as a “will call” witness, and he indicated that Chad’s Accountant would testify about (among other things) the parties’ “ability to pay and determination of alimony amount.” For her part, Jane listed Jane’s Accountant as a “will call” witness, and she indicated that she would call Jane’s Accountant “to rebut the expert report of” Chad’s Accountant. Jane also listed her real estate appraiser as a “may call” witness, but he did not end up testifying at trial. ¶9 A few days before trial, Chad filed a motion in limine asking the court to forbid Jane’s Accountant from testifying at trial. In his motion, Chad pointed out that Jane had set forth claims on which “she carrie[d] the burden of proof,” including her claim for alimony, and he asserted that because Jane’s Accountant’s testimony “aid[ed] in Jane’s case-in-chief,” Jane had been obligated to designate Jane’s Accountant as a case-in-chief expert and that Jane had therefore violated disclosure rules by waiting to disclose Jane’s Accountant, for the first time, as a rebuttal expert. As a remedy, Chad asked the court to exclude all testimony from Jane’s Accountant. ¶10 The next day, Jane filed an opposition to Chad’s motion in limine, wherein she asserted that Jane’s Accountant had been “properly designated in all regards.” She explained that at the time her case-in-chief designations were due, she had not “believe[d that] a forensic expert would be needed” and that it was only after Chad disclosed Chad’s Accountant that it “bec[a]me clear that Jane needed a rebuttal expert.” 20241180-CA 4 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter Trial ¶11 When the trial began, Chad’s counsel brought up the motion in limine, and the court asked, “[D]id we not already have a motion deadline in this case, so these matters could have been decided before we got right here at the time of trial?” The court mused, “[I]n most of my civil matters I send out a pretrial order giving everybody deadlines, including motions in limine. I have a standing order of 21 motions that parties cannot bring before me.” In reference to Chad’s motion potentially being considered untimely, the court stated, “[E]verybody knows, and is aware that nobody follows the rules strictly in domestic relations [cases], and it’s never really enforced except when people want to use it as a sword.” But the court concluded by stating that, regardless of whether Chad had filed his motion in limine on time, the court would consider the motion on its merits and would “deal with” it “at the time, if and when [Jane’s Accountant] is called,” and by telling Chad that he could make objections “at that point in time.” ¶12 Chad then testified, and he stated that he had been a senior vice president of a bank since 2014 and that his W-2 income had been $300,127 in 2021; $526,952 in 2022; and $528,768 in 2023. Notably, the figure Chad was using for his overall 2021 income was based solely on his W-2 income from the bank; he “exclude[ed] [a] finder’s fee [bonus] of about $250,000,” an amount he testified was excludable because it had been paid to a limited liability company called 2LMD, LLC (2LMD), a company he and Jane jointly owned as “50 percent shareholders.” Chad then called Vocational Expert, who testified that “[t]he best indicator” of what an individual is capable of earning comes from federal labor statistics and that those statistics indicated that the “upper 90th percentile” of salary for “a financial manager” like Chad was $226,820. ¶13 Chad’s Accountant then took the stand, and he testified about the couple’s business holdings, including 2LMD. He stated 20241180-CA 5 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter that 2LMD had been “created for a one-time commission from a business opportunity” in which Chad had “helped facilitate financing for investors looking to develop land,” and he testified that, for those services, Chad had “received a one-time commission of $250,000.” He also offered other testimony about the parties’ finances; for instance, he testified that the combined “marital standard of living” for Chad and Jane was $14,214.32 per month. In addition, he offered evaluations of Chad’s and Jane’s expenses, opining that Chad had an adjusted monthly need of $7,228.76 and Jane had an adjusted monthly need of $7,205.57— amounts roughly equal to half of his computed “marital standard of living.” Chad’s Accountant testified that he had calculated the parties’ monthly expense amounts by starting with the couple’s monthly average spending, during the marriage, on over forty categories of purchases, and then “allocat[ing] their need,” a process that (for most line items) essentially involved dividing the average in half and then making additional adjustments, such as changing the housing allowance so that, post-separation, Jane and Chad were each allocated $2,128.92 for housing. 2 ¶14 After that, Jane indicated that she wanted to call Jane’s Accountant to the stand, but at that point Chad renewed his motion in limine to exclude Jane’s Accountant and asked the court to rule on it. Specifically, Chad claimed that testimony from Jane’s Accountant would be “deficient procedurally and substantively,” procedurally for “not follow[ing] rule 26” and substantively for being “outrageous” and “not reliable.” After considering the parties’ arguments, the court allowed Jane’s Accountant to testify, stating, “[I]f I exclude the report based upon some technicalities and whatever else, and the information doesn’t come in, and then I make my determinations, we’re making a gamble in whether or not the [Utah] Court of Appeals is going to say I should have let 2. For reference, the couple’s average monthly mortgage payment for the marital house during 2021 and 2022 was $2,819. 20241180-CA 6 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter it in and considered it anyway, because it really wasn’t harmful to you.” The court continued, Look, the bottom line here, . . . if the expert report is garbage, I’m not going to consider it. Okay? If it’s inflated, you can point that out . . . through the report. But I need to get some information in regards to the marital standard of living in regards to these individuals. Then I want to go through the financial declarations and their statements. ¶15 Jane’s Accountant then testified, and he rebutted certain aspects of Chad’s Accountant’s testimony. With regard to the parties’ reasonable expenses, Jane’s Accountant explained that one cannot properly compute post-separation expenses for each party simply by dividing marital expenses in half, because many of the typical expenses a household incurs during a marriage need to be replicated for each party post-separation. For this reason, he allocated 100% (rather than 50% or some other percentage) of many of the parties’ historical expenses to both parties’ post- separation expenses because each of them, after divorce, would still need to pay the entire expense. Using the same underlying data that Chad’s Accountant had used, Jane’s Accountant concluded that the couple had spent some $17,000 per month on expenses during the marriage. But he computed each party’s post- separation expenses as greater than simply half of that amount; in particular, he testified that Jane’s post-separation expenses were $13,715.02 and that Chad’s were $12,022.33. ¶16 Jane testified next, and she discussed her financial declaration, her earning capacity, and what she considered to be her reasonable monthly expenses. She testified that during the majority of the marriage she had been “at home with the kids” and that her marital responsibilities had included cooking, cleaning, helping with yardwork, taking the children to appointments, and making sure they stayed on top of their 20241180-CA 7 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter schoolwork. She testified that during the marriage she had worked outside the home “very minimally.” Based on this and other evidence, Chad and Jane eventually stipulated that Jane’s income, for child support and alimony purposes, was $2,896 per month. Jane also offered testimony regarding certain specific expenses listed in her financial declaration, including gym memberships, personal care, clothing, entertainment, travel, groceries, jewelry, and pets. ¶17 After completion of the evidentiary presentations, the parties submitted written closing arguments. As relevant here, Jane asked the court to order Chad to pay her attorney fees, but she stated that, if the court were disinclined to go in that direction, “at a minimum, both [parties’ attorney] fees should be paid out of the marital estate before it gets divided.” For his part, Chad argued that Jane had had access to significant funds at the time of separation and that she should have used those funds to pay her attorney fees, arguing specifically that “Jane cannot misuse her finances post-separation and then claim that she needs money for attorneys’ fees.” ¶18 Later, the court issued written rulings containing its findings of fact and conclusions of law. In those rulings, the court found that Chad’s income, for child support and alimony purposes, was $526,531 per year, which equated to $43,878 per month gross and $31,905 per month net. The court arrived at this amount by averaging Chad’s income over a three-year period and by including the entirety of the 2021 bonus payment made to 2LMD as part of Chad’s income for that year. Based on that income figure (and on the income figure for Jane to which the parties had stipulated), the court calculated Chad’s child support obligation as $2,448 per month, to be paid until the parties’ last remaining minor child reached majority. ¶19 With regard to alimony, the court ordered Chad to pay Jane $8,623 per month “for the length of the marriage.” It 20241180-CA 8 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter determined that Chad’s “approved expenses” amounted to $10,176 per month and that Jane’s “approved expenses” amounted to $11,519 per month. The court determined these expense amounts by first considering the testimony of the accounting experts along with the parties’ own testimony and financial disclosures, and then by making its own adjustments to some of the line items; for example, it lowered Jane’s “telephone” expense because it found that Jane’s listed amount “included the costs for . . . family members.” Then, using the same income figures that it had used to compute child support, the court subtracted Jane’s stipulated income ($2,896) from her approved expenses ($11,519) and, from there, determined that Jane’s monthly shortfall was $8,623 per month and that Chad had the financial capacity to make that payment. ¶20 Regarding marital property and debts, the court ordered that the parties’ marital house be sold and that the proceeds be “equally split between the parties.” Further, it ordered the parties to “pay all their mutual debt and post-separation debts from marital assets, except attorney fees.” And it also ordered that all financial accounts owned by the parties “be equally divided between the parties as of” the date of trial. ¶21 As for attorney fees, the court denied Jane’s request that Chad be ordered to pay her fees. Instead, the court ordered “each party to pay their own attorney fees and costs,” finding specifically that Jane had “the ability to pay her own fees in view of the large amounts of assets awarded to her, which include[d] one half of the balances in all accounts and one half of the equity in” the parties’ marital house. Post-trial Proceedings ¶22 A few weeks later, Jane filed a motion to alter or amend part of the court’s ruling concerning attorney fees. Specifically, she asserted that Chad had paid at least some of his attorney fees 20241180-CA 9 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter with funds from one of the parties’ marital accounts prior to the court’s equitable division of those funds, whereas Jane had put her attorney fees on credit cards and was now required to pay her fees entirely out of her own post-division share of the assets. And she argued that the effect of this was that Jane had ended up paying “75% of the parties’ attorney fees: all of her own, and half of Chad’s,” a fact that she posited was at odds with the court’s ruling that each party was to bear their own fees and costs. Chad disagreed with Jane’s claim in this regard, again pointing out that during the pre-trial phase of the case Jane had been given access to certain marital funds but that she had chosen to spend those funds on things other than attorney fees. 3 ¶23 Later, and before the court had ruled on the motion just described, Jane filed three additional motions that she styled as “motions to enforce.” In one of them, Jane asked the court to order Chad to produce nine months’ worth of statements—spanning the months immediately preceding trial—from one of the parties’ bank accounts (the Zions Account) over which Chad had maintained sole control during the separation period. Jane asserted that, during that period, the Zions Account had contained then-undivided marital assets and that the balance in that account had dropped by nearly $100,000. In another motion, Jane asked the court to hold Chad in contempt for (among other things) “failing to equally divide the bank accounts.” And in yet another motion, Jane asked the court to hold Chad in contempt for “dissipating approximately $100,000” from the Zions Account. ¶24 Chad then filed his own motion seeking to alter or amend the trial court’s ruling, claiming that the court improperly admitted testimony from Jane’s Accountant and improperly 3. Chad specifically claimed that Jane used her share of the post- separation marital funds on things he deemed extravagant, such as traveling and elective surgery. 20241180-CA 10 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter calculated Chad’s income. With regard to Jane’s Accountant, Chad asserted that the court had “refused to hear” his motion in limine seeking exclusion of that expert. And with regard to his income, Chad assailed the court’s decision to include the entirety of the 2LMD bonus payment in his 2021 income instead of “attributing half of that income to Jane.” ¶25 In addressing these voluminous post-trial motions, the court first determined that Jane’s three motions to enforce should be adjudicated by a domestic relations commissioner before proceeding to the court itself. But the court allowed the parties’ dueling motions to alter or amend to move forward without first going to the commissioner. After full briefing and oral argument on the motions to alter or amend, the court issued a written ruling denying both motions. In that ruling, the court stated as follows: [Chad’s] motion in limine on [Jane’s Accountant] was denied at trial but counsel requested a formal denial which is granted herein. Regarding [Jane’s] request to change the award of attorney fees . . . [Jane] does and will have more than sufficient assets to pay her fees and there is not a need. Additionally, [Jane] received [marital] assets early in the separation . . . which she could have used to pay fees, as did [Chad], but she [chose] to spend the money elsewhere and not pay her fees. Finally, [Jane] was the cause of increased attorney fees for both parties, and the [c]ourt is not going to [re]ward her by making [Chad] pay his [f]ees caused by [Jane’s] actions and one half of [Jane’s] fees. ¶26 Meanwhile, after a hearing on Jane’s motion concerning discovery of bank statements from the Zions Account, the commissioner recommended that Jane be allowed to “prepare and serve two subpoenas to obtain proof of the bank statements,” with Chad bearing the costs associated with those subpoenas. 20241180-CA 11 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter Chad objected to the commissioner’s recommendation, but the trial court overruled the objection. ¶27 Jane then subpoenaed the bank statements relating to the Zions Account, and those documents showed that in the months leading up to trial, $85,000 had been transferred out of the Zions Account via checks addressed to Chad’s attorneys, and that this had occurred prior to the account being equally divided between the parties. Jane then consolidated the arguments made in her prior motions to enforce and filed another motion to enforce, this time claiming that Chad had “dissipated [marital funds] by writing checks out of [the Zions Account]” to pay for his attorney fees. As a remedy, she asked the court to award her “the entirety of the dissipated funds.” Chad opposed the new motion, claiming that he had “used those funds on his reasonable expenses” and that Jane was “wasting everyone’s time (including the [c]ourt’s) by taking them on this nearly year-long fishing expedition.” ¶28 After oral argument on the new motion, the commissioner agreed with Jane and recommended that Chad be “held in contempt,” that Jane be awarded attorney fees in connection with the motions to enforce, and that “Chad . . . reimburse Jane $42,500, one-half of the $85,000” of pre-division marital funds that Chad had used to pay his attorneys. ¶29 Chad objected to the commissioner’s recommendation, and the court eventually issued a written ruling sustaining that objection. There, the court concluded as follows: The [c]ourt already has ruled multiple times on the issue of attorney fees and this was simply a different approach to try to readdress the same issue. The [c]ourt left open the potential issue of dissipation of assets from this one account as the account balance had dropped and [Jane] did not know why. It was shown that [some] $80,000 went to attorney fees for 20241180-CA 12 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter [Chad]. The [c]ourt already addressed and readdressed the issues of fees and the same arguments made previously. The [c]ourt believes the commissioner did not have the entire picture of this matter when she handled the matter before her. . . . [T]he objection is sustained. ISSUES AND STANDARDS OF REVIEW ¶30 Both parties now appeal, challenging various aspects of the court’s rulings. In his appeal, Chad asks us to consider two issues. First, he takes issue with the court’s denial of his motion in limine, in which he sought to exclude Jane’s Accountant from testifying at trial. “We review for correctness any legal questions underlying the admissibility of evidence, but we review for abuse of discretion any decisions to admit or exclude evidence and determinations regarding the admissibility of expert testimony.” Metropolitan Water Dist. of Salt Lake & Sandy v. Sorf, 2023 UT App 146, ¶ 28, 542 P.3d 87 (cleaned up). ¶31 Second, Chad challenges the substance of the court’s alimony award, with regard to the computation of both Jane’s expenses as well as the parties’ income. As a general matter, “we review all aspects of [a] trial court’s alimony determination for an abuse of discretion.” Miner v. Miner, 2021 UT App 77, ¶ 11, 496 P.3d 242 (cleaned up). Factual findings that undergird an alimony determination are reviewed deferentially and are overturned “only if they are clearly erroneous.” See Klein v. Klein, 2025 UT App 170, ¶ 25, 582 P.3d 1197. Under that standard, “we will disturb a court’s factual findings only where the court’s conclusions do not logically follow from, or are not supported by, the evidence.” Id. (cleaned up). “But when [trial] courts have discretion to weigh factors or balance competing interests, those discretionary determinations must rest upon sound legal principles.” In re adoption of M.A., 2024 UT 6, ¶ 10, 545 P.3d 241 20241180-CA 13 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter (cleaned up). And “when a legal conclusion is embedded in a [trial] court’s discretionary determination, we peel back the abuse of discretion standard and look to make sure that the court applied the correct law.” Id. (cleaned up). Accordingly, a “court’s choice of, and application of, the appropriate legal standard . . . presents an issue of law that we review for correctness.” Myers v. Myers, 2023 UT App 20, ¶ 19, 526 P.3d 1253 (cleaned up). ¶32 In her cross-appeal, Jane takes issue with the court’s attorney fees rulings. “We review a [trial] court’s decision to award attorney fees for an abuse of discretion, but review its underlying legal conclusions for correctness.” Miner v. Miner, 2025 UT App 64, ¶ 13, 571 P.3d 788 (cleaned up), cert. denied, 574 P.3d 526 (Utah 2025). ANALYSIS I. Jane’s Accountant ¶33 First, Chad challenges the trial court’s order denying his motion in limine and allowing Jane’s Accountant to testify at trial. In particular, he claims that Jane’s Accountant “should have been mandatorily excluded” because he had not been properly disclosed under rule 26 of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure and because the court did not make findings “concerning harmlessness or good cause.” We find Chad’s arguments in this regard unpersuasive because we conclude that Jane’s disclosure of Jane’s Accountant as a rebuttal expert was procedurally proper. ¶34 Under our rules, the timing for expert disclosure varies depending upon whether the party bears the burden of proof at trial on the relevant issue. On issues for which a party bears the burden of proof, the relevant rules are subsections (i) and (iii) of rule 26(a)(4)(C) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure. Subsection (i) governs the timing for disclosing case-in-chief witnesses, see 20241180-CA 14 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter Utah R. Civ. P. 26(a)(4)(C)(i) (“The party who bears the burden of proof on the issue for which expert testimony is offered must serve on the other parties the information required by paragraph (a)(4)(A) within 14 days after the close of fact discovery.”), and subsection (iii) governs the timing for disclosing rebuttal witnesses, see id. R. 26(a)(4)(C)(iii) (“If the party who bears the burden of proof on an issue wants to designate rebuttal expert witnesses, it must serve on the other parties the information required by paragraph (a)(4)(A) within 14 days after the later of (A) the date on which the election under paragraph (a)(4)(C)(ii) is due or (B) service of the written report or the taking of the expert’s deposition pursuant to paragraph (a)(4)(C)(ii).”). ¶35 In this situation, subsections (i) and (iii) are the relevant rules because Jane bore the burden of proof at trial with regard to her alimony claim. 4 “A party seeking alimony bears the burden of demonstrating to the court that the [relevant] factors support an award of alimony.” Dahl v. Dahl, 2015 UT 79, ¶ 95, 459 P.3d 276 (cleaned up). Here, Jane asked for alimony in her counter-petition for divorce, and she requested it by motion early in the case, 4. At oral argument before this court, Chad’s counsel argued that Jane should have disclosed Jane’s Accountant as an “opposition expert” (pursuant to rule 26(a)(4)(C)(ii)) rather than as a rebuttal expert (pursuant to subsection (iii)) because Chad had filed his designation of Chad’s Accountant before Jane filed her designation of Jane’s Accountant. However, rule 26(a)(4)(C) indicates that the deciding factor for determining which expert designation rule applies hinges on which party “bear[s] the burden of proof” and not on the order in which the parties designate their experts. See Utah R. Civ. P. 26(a)(4)(C). And here, it is clear that Jane bore the burden of proof on the alimony issue. Therefore, we disagree with Chad’s contention that because Chad filed his expert disclosure before Jane filed hers, Jane’s Accountant should have been designated as an opposition expert pursuant to subsection (ii). 20241180-CA 15 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter during the temporary orders phase. The court granted her request for temporary alimony and, from there, both parties recognized that Jane’s claim for alimony would be a central issue at trial. Indeed, in his initial motion in limine on the topic of Jane’s Accountant, Chad acknowledged that Jane “carrie[d] the burden of proof” on her request for alimony at trial. And at oral argument before this court, Chad conceded that Jane bore the burden of proof on the issue of alimony. Moreover, alimony is the main issue Chad’s Accountant and Jane’s Accountant were designated to address. Chad’s pretrial disclosures expressly stated that Chad’s Accountant would testify about the parties’ “ability to pay and determination of alimony amount,” and Jane’s pretrial disclosures indicated that Jane’s Accountant would testify “to rebut the expert report of” Chad’s Accountant. Accordingly, it is clear that Jane bore the burden of proof on her alimony claim and that Chad’s Accountant and Jane’s Accountant were experts specifically designated to address that issue. Thus, we look to subsections (i) and (iii)—and not to subsection (ii)—to determine whether Jane properly disclosed Jane’s Accountant. ¶36 And we conclude that she did. To be sure, Jane did not designate Jane’s Accountant as a case-in-chief expert pursuant to subsection (i). At that point in time, Jane designated only one expert (a real estate appraiser). But she did designate Jane’s Accountant as a rebuttal expert pursuant to subsection (iii), and she did so timely and correctly. And at trial, Jane’s Accountant offered testimony that was limited to rebutting Chad’s Accountant. 5 Under these circumstances, we perceive no infirmities in the manner in which Jane designated Jane’s Accountant as a rebuttal expert. 5. Indeed, Chad makes no meaningful claim, either on appeal or before the trial court, that Jane’s Accountant offered testimony that went beyond the scope of rebutting the conclusions offered by Chad’s Accountant. 20241180-CA 16 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter ¶37 Chad argues otherwise. He contends that Jane was not permitted to designate Jane’s Accountant as a rebuttal expert when she did not designate any accountant as a case-in-chief expert. In other words, Chad claims that the rules require Jane to designate an initial case-in-chief expert before being able to designate a rebuttal expert. We reject this assertion, at least with regard to claims—such as alimony claims—for which expert testimony is not necessarily required to prove one’s case. 6 ¶38 As an initial matter, it is worth noting that there is nothing in the text of the relevant rules that even hints at a requirement that a party who bears the burden of proof on an issue must first designate a case-in-chief expert in order to be able to later designate a rebuttal expert. See Utah R. Civ. P. 26(a)(4)(C)(i), (iii). We are rightly hesitant to read any such restriction into the rule. See St. Jeor v. Kerr Corp., 2015 UT 49, ¶ 13, 353 P.3d 137 (“[W]e will not read additional limitations into [a rule of procedure] that the language cannot bear.”). And the linguistic clues we do have point in the other direction. For example, subsection (iii) states that “[t]he court may preclude an expert disclosed only as a 6. Chad relies on Dierl v. Birkin, 2023 UT App 6, 525 P.3d 127, to support his argument. But Dierl is readily distinguishable. In that medical negligence case, the plaintiff bore the burden of proof on the relevant issue, and he needed expert testimony to prove his case. Id. ¶ 19. Yet he designated one of his expert witnesses only as a rebuttal expert, and the district court refused to allow that witness’s opinions to be admitted in the plaintiff’s case-in-chief. Id. ¶ 12. On that basis, the court entered summary judgment against the plaintiff for lack of proof, and we affirmed that order. Id. ¶¶ 13, 41. In this case, by contrast, Jane did not need an expert in order to prove her alimony claim, and the trial court here, in any event, exercised its discretion to allow Jane’s Accountant—a designated rebuttal expert—to testify during Jane’s case-in-chief, a decision Chad does not here challenge. For these reasons, Dierl is not helpful to Chad’s arguments. 20241180-CA 17 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter rebuttal expert from testifying in the case in chief.” Utah R. Civ. P. 26(a)(4)(C)(iii) (emphasis added). This language suggests that the drafters of the rules envisioned a scenario in which a properly designated rebuttal expert could testify in the case-in-chief of a party bearing the burden of proof on an issue. See Gallegos v. Brewski’s on Historic 25th St., 2026 UT App 120, ¶ 43 (“The text in rule 26(a)(4)(C)(iii) is permissive; it expressly provides that the court may preclude an expert disclosed only as a rebuttal expert from testifying in the case in chief.” (cleaned up)), petition for cert. filed, Oct. 9, 2026 (No. 20261347). ¶39 But even if the rules could be considered ambiguous on this point, we agree with Jane that the practicalities of the situation cut strongly in her favor. Generally, alimony claims can be fully proved and supported at trial without expert testimony. See Wellman v. Kawasaki, 2023 UT App 11, ¶ 14, 525 P.3d 139 (stating that “the most common way” for alimony claimants to satisfy their burden of proof is by “provid[ing] the court with a credible financial declaration and supporting documentation to demonstrate that the [relevant] factors support an award of alimony” (cleaned up)); see also Munoz-Madrid v. Carlos-Moran, 2018 UT App 95, ¶ 10, 427 P.3d 420 (finding that even though a party failed to present expert testimony or even file a financial declaration, “there was not a complete lack of evidence to support” an alimony award). And in domestic cases—an area of the law in which nearly 75% of cases in Utah involve at least one unrepresented party, see And Justice for All, Domestic Violence and Family Law Legal Aid, https://le.utah.gov/interim/2025/pdf/ 00001035.pdf [https://perma.cc/6E7G-CEBD]—parties are often cash-strapped and making every effort to resolve their litigation in the most cost-effective way possible. In such situations, parties may not want to spend the money to hire an expert to support an alimony claim, at least not until they know that the other side is going to spend the money to do so in opposition to such a claim. As Jane sensibly points out in her brief, “a party with the burden of proof may not think that they need an expert on these issues or 20241180-CA 18 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter may not want to (or be able to) spend money on them,” but if “the other side then chooses to retain an expert to testify about those [same] issues, the rules rightfully permit the party with the burden to then decide whether they want to retain a rebuttal expert.” Indeed, the rule interpretation for which Chad advocates would put a lot of pressure on alimony claimants to designate case-in-chief accounting experts in nearly every case, because they would know that if they elect not to, the other side would have the exclusive and unrebuttable option to be the only party with an accounting expert at trial, a fact that may put the alimony claimant at a significant disadvantage. ¶40 Chad pushes back, claiming that interpreting the rule in Jane’s favor “wholly undermines [r]ule 26’s purpose of ‘eliminat[ing] unfair surprise and provid[ing] the opposing party with a reasonable opportunity to prepare for trial.’” (Quoting Erickson v. Erickson, 2022 UT App 27, ¶ 28, 507 P.3d 824.) We disagree; no strategic windfall results for a party who bears the burden of proof and who chooses to forgo disclosing a case-in- chief expert yet later opts to disclose a rebuttal expert. After all, the decision to take this path is not without risk, because if the party who bears the burden of proof chooses to forgo timely designating a case-in-chief expert, any later-designated rebuttal expert will be strictly confined to rebutting the matters discussed by the other side’s expert and will not be allowed to offer opinions on other matters. Moreover, it will be entirely up to the court’s discretion as to whether that rebuttal expert will be allowed to offer his or her limited rebuttal opinions in the party’s case-in- chief; the court has the discretion to restrict that expert solely to testimony given at the end of the trial, in rebuttal. See Utah R. Civ. P. 26(a)(4)(C)(iii) (“The court may preclude an expert disclosed only as a rebuttal expert from testifying in the case in chief.”). ¶41 In sum, Jane properly and timely disclosed Jane’s Accountant as a rebuttal witness on a matter for which she bore the burden of proof; her decision not to designate a case-in-chief 20241180-CA 19 2026 UT App 168  Canter v. Canter accounting expert on this topic did not preclude her from designating a rebuttal expert. On this basis, we reject Chad’s challenge to the trial court’s order denying his motion in limine asking for exclusion of Jane’s Accountant. II. Alimony ¶42 Second, Chad