Ketterle v. Ketterle

Central to this dispute about the division of marital assets is the husband’s 2001 Nobel Prize for Physics.1 The *759judge found that winning the Nobel Prize identified the husband as a superstar in the scientific and academic universe, and she projected his having substantial ability to acquire future income and assets. Relying heavily on this factor, she assigned the wife a greater percentage of the existing marital assets.

The husband has appealed, claiming (1) the wife received a disproportionate share of the assets; (2) the $83,000 the judge assigned to the husband out of the 2001 Nobel Prize…