Kahn

In this dissolution of marriage proceeding, husband Robert S. Kahn failed to respond to discovery propounded by wife Jessie A. Kahn. Even after the trial court granted Jessie’s motion to compel, he still failed to respond. Finally, after Jessie filed a motion for terminating sanctions, Robert served responses, but they included numerous objections based on the Fifth Amendment.

The trial court struck Robert’s responsive pleading as a discovery sanction and entered his default. It also denied his motion to set aside the default. After a prove-up hearing, it entered a default judgment, which, among other things, awarded Jessie $275,000 against Robert for breach of fiduciary duty.

Robert now contends:

In the published portion of this opinion, we agree that the award of $275,000 rendered the judgment void, because Jessie’s petition had not indicated that she was seeking any particular amount of damages for breach of fiduciary duty. In the unpublished portion, we find no other error. Hence, we will remand to the trial court with directions to determine whether to modify the judgment by striking the award of $275,000 or to vacate the judgment in its entirety so that Jessie…