Proof the Court Can Consider

The Court of Appeals decided an interesting issue in Pruitt v. Pruitt located here.  The case came out earlier today.  The opinion dealt with whether a chancellor can do an investigation beyond the proof presented in a divorce case regarding valuations.  The Court of Appeals said today they cannot and that this was error.  The opinion more or less stated that the Court was bound by the proof of valuations provided by the parties and cannot speculate to determine what the chancellor believes the valuation to be.  From reading the case close, it seems to me that a fair and narrow reading of the case is that the chancellor can use their experiences and maybe some investigation of their own to determine valuations, however, they must have support in the record of some kind regarding what amount they determine that to be.