On May 7, 2024 the NC Court of Appeals awarded Wife, Charity Johnson, an equitable distribution award of over 1.5 million dollars based upon the value of her husband's law practice in Charlotte, Sneed pllc.  See Sneed v Johnston.

Jason Sneed is apparently a skilled and successful intellectual property attorney in Charlotte, but his behavior in his divorce case indicates how a divorce can cause even the best of us to make decisions that are not in our best legal interest.

After initially cooperating with the court appointed forensic accountant, Mr. Sneed refused to provide additional information or pay the expert's retainer.  After some time of this, Wife paid Mr. Sneed's share of the retainer, along with her own, and retained the accountant as her personal expert.

At trial, Mr. Sneed failed to present any expert testimony regarding the value of his business to counter his Wife's evidence. He simply testified that he believed his business had a negative value due to an outstanding credit line.  The judge found Mr. Sneed not credible- can't imagine why- and went with the opinion of Wife's expert and valued his law practice at over 3 million dollars, to include the credit line.  The trial judge explained his findings as follows:

These Findings were supported by evidence including emails and testimony documenting Plaintiff’s repeated failures to respond to (accountant's) attempts to contact him, pay (accountant's) invoices as ordered by the trial court, or cooperate with (accountant) in a timely manner. Together, these Findings make clear Plaintiff was a significant impediment to (accountant's) timely and accurate valuation of Sneed, PLLC. Given this evidence, the trial court was within its discretion to accept (accountant's) testimony and valuation. Therefore, we conclude the trial court did (not) err in allowing (accountant) to testify, accepting his reports into evidence, and denying Plaintiff’s Motion to Strike.

Furthermore, at trial, Mr. Sneed did not object to (accountant) being tendered as an expert witness in accounting, forensic accounting, and business valuation!  The court went on to say that "... Plaintiff had ample opportunity to work with Reagan and raise any concerns he had with the valuation. Instead, Plaintiff ignored Reagan’s repeated attempts at communication." Ouch!

Well, Mr. Sneed has a lot of money to pay out.  Had he been a little more engaged, perhaps less of a jerk, things would not have been so bad for him.  I don't see him getting out of this one anytime soon!

The moral of this story is to not let hurt feeling made a bad situation even worse!

Guy Vitetta

Charleston, South Carolina