Written by Chris Walton, JDThe husband’s argument was simple: his business interest had increased substantially between the date of filing and the date of trial, and he wanted the court to use the later, higher value. For every other marital asset — the house, the retirement accounts, the vehicles — he was perfectly happy with the earlier filing-date values. He wanted one asset revalued at the date that benefited him and everything else frozen at the date that also benefited him.
The Nebraska Court of Appeals saw through it. In Kreager v. Kreager (Neb. Ct. App. Jan. 14, 2025), the court rejected the husband’s attempt to selectively revalue only the asset that had appreciated, affirming that valuation dates must reflect a consistent temporal framework across the entire marital estate. You don’t get to cherry-pick the date that maximizes your position for one asset and freeze the date that minimizes your exposure on everything else.
For family law attorneys, Kreager establishes a principle that sounds obvious but gets violated constantly in practice: the valuation date is a snapshot, and the snapshot has to be taken at the same moment for all assets. The moment you argue for a different date on one asset, you’re implicitly asking the court to let you game the temporal framework — and after Kreager, the court won’t let you.
Between the date a divorce is filed and the date the case goes to trial, asset values change. The business may grow or shrink. Real estate may appreciate or depreciate. Retirement accounts may gain or lose. Market conditions shift. The longer the case takes, the more the values diverge from the filing-date snapshot.
That divergence creates an incentive problem. Each spouse will want to use the valuation date that produces the most favorable overall result. The business owner whose company appreciated during the litigation may want the filing-date value for the business (lower) and the trial-date value for assets they’re keeping (if those also appreciated). The non-owner spouse may want the trial-date value for the business (higher) and the filing-date value for the house (if it depreciated).
The Kreager husband took this a step further: he didn’t just argue for a different date. He argued that only the business interest should be revalued at the later date because it had increased substantially, while all other assets should remain valued as of the earlier filing date. The asymmetry was transparent: he wanted the higher value on the one asset where appreciation benefited his position, and the lower values on everything else.
The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s rejection of this approach. The holding: valuation dates must be applied consistently. Courts evaluate all assets under the same temporal framework. You cannot selectively revalue only the assets that moved in your favor.
The consistency requirement isn’t just a procedural rule. It reflects an economic reality: the marital estate is a portfolio, and the values of assets within that portfolio are interrelated. A business that appreciates during a period of strong economic growth may appreciate alongside the retirement accounts, the real estate, and the other investments in the estate. Revaluing one asset at a later date without revaluing the others creates a distorted picture of the estate’s composition.
Consider the practical consequence. If the business increased from $2 million to $3 million between filing and trial, but the marital home also appreciated from $500,000 to $600,000, the retirement accounts grew from $400,000 to $500,000, and the investment portfolio increased from $300,000 to $400,000, the estate’s total value increased across the board. Revaluing only the business at the later date overstates the business’s share of the estate relative to everything else, because the denominator (total estate value) is artificially held at the earlier, lower level for non-business assets.
The inverse is equally distortive. If the business declined while other assets appreciated, allowing the business owner to freeze the business at the earlier (higher) value while revaluing other assets at the later (higher) values produces the same asymmetry in the other direction. The point is that the snapshot must be consistent to produce a fair picture of the estate’s composition.
The choice of valuation date varies significantly across jurisdictions, but the consistency principle from Kreager applies regardless of which date the jurisdiction selects:
Date of separation. Virginia and several other states default to the separation date as the valuation date. This provides the earliest snapshot and avoids arguments about post-separation appreciation or depreciation. The risk: if the case takes years to reach trial, the filing-date values may be significantly stale.
Date of filing. Nebraska (as in Kreager) and other states use the filing date. This provides a known, objective date that both parties can plan around.
Date of trial or distribution. Connecticut, Illinois, Idaho, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin use the trial or distribution date. This provides the most current snapshot but creates uncertainty for planning purposes, since neither side knows the final values until trial.
Discretionary date. Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wyoming give the court discretion to select the most equitable date. This flexibility allows the court to account for unusual circumstances — like a business that appreciates dramatically because of one spouse’s post-separation efforts — but also creates the opening for cherry-picking arguments that Kreager rejects.
Regardless of which date applies, Kreager stands for the proposition that the date must be applied consistently. A court exercising discretion to select a trial-date valuation can’t then allow one spouse to keep filing-date values for selected assets.
The one legitimate exception to the consistency principle — and the argument the Kreager husband might have made more effectively — is the active/passive appreciation distinction. In many jurisdictions, post-separation appreciation that results from one spouse’s active efforts (managing the business, making investment decisions, growing the client base) may be treated as that spouse’s separate property, while passive appreciation (market forces, economic conditions, inflation) remains marital.
This distinction doesn’t change the valuation date; it changes the classification of the appreciation. The business is still valued as of the same date as everything else. But the portion of the increase attributable to the business owner’s post-separation efforts may be excluded from the marital estate. That’s a classification argument, not a valuation-date argument — and it requires the expert to decompose the appreciation into active and passive components, which is analytically challenging but substantively different from cherry-picking the date.
For practitioners representing the business owner: if the business appreciated substantially between filing and trial, the argument isn’t “revalue only my business at the trial date.” The argument is “the appreciation was caused by my post-separation efforts, and that active appreciation is my separate property.” That’s a harder argument to make — it requires evidence of what the owner did and expert testimony decomposing the appreciation — but it’s the argument the court will consider. Kreager forecloses the shortcut.
The valuation-date question must be resolved before the expert begins work, because it determines what financial data the expert uses, what market conditions the expert assumes, and what date the expert’s conclusion speaks to. A valuation prepared as of the filing date using filing-date financials will produce a different answer than one prepared as of the trial date using trial-date financials — and the expert may need to prepare both if the date is contested.
For family law attorneys retaining a valuation expert:
Confirm the jurisdiction’s default valuation date and any discretionary exceptions. Don’t let the expert assume a date without checking the law. If the jurisdiction gives the court discretion, discuss whether you’ll be arguing for a specific date and why.
If the date is contested, budget for multiple valuations. The expert may need to prepare valuations as of two or more dates. This doubles the work and the cost, but it’s cheaper than preparing a single valuation at the wrong date and losing on the date issue.
If post-separation appreciation is significant, engage the expert to decompose it. Active vs. passive appreciation analysis requires the expert to identify the drivers of the value change and allocate them between the spouse’s efforts and market forces. This is a separate analysis from the valuation itself and needs to be scoped into the engagement from the start.
Make sure the date is consistent across the engagement. If the expert values the business as of the filing date, every other asset in the estate should be valued as of the same date. Kreager makes clear that inconsistency is the argument the court will reject.
Kreager v. Kreager establishes a principle that should be axiomatic but apparently needs to be stated: the valuation date applies to the entire marital estate, not to individual assets selected by whichever spouse the date favors. If your client’s business appreciated dramatically between filing and trial, the argument is active/passive appreciation, not selective revaluation. If the business declined while other assets grew, the answer is the same: one date, all assets, consistent framework. The valuation date is a snapshot. You take it once, and you take it of everything.
If you need a business valuation as of a specific date in a divorce proceeding — or need an active/passive appreciation analysis to decompose post-separation value changes — happy to discuss the scope. The valuation-date question often determines the number more than the methodology does.
Schedule a free consultation meeting to discuss your valuation needs.
