Opinion ID: 1228809
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Summary of applicable policy

Text: In response to our request for a guideline which this court could furnish for the resolution of support disputes, the husband, on oral argument, suggested the following: If the dependent spouse is awarded the family home, and the minor children in his or her custody are being supported at a reasonable level by the supporting spouse, and the dependent spouse is employed at a job commensurate with his or her skills and abilities, then a reasonable standard of living is made available to that dependent spouse and if spousal support is appropriate at all, it should be limited to a short adjustment period of one to two years. We cannot approve this general statement as a guideline to be applied to marriages of long duration. We will not ignore the fact that, at least until recent years, young women entering marriage were led to believe  if not expressly by their husbands-to-be, certainly implicitly by the entire culture in which they had come to maturity  that they need not develop any special skills or abilities beyond those necessary to homemaking and child care, because their husbands, if they married, would provide their financial support and security. We cannot hold that women who relied on that assurance, regardless of whether they sacrificed any specific career plans of their own when they married, must as a matter of principle be limited to the standard of living they can provide for themselves if employed at a job commensurate with [their] skills and abilities. The marriage itself may well have prevented the development of those skills and abilities. The statutory standards do not require such an approach. The legislature has directed the courts to consider, among other things, the wife's earning capacity and financial condition. For those factors to be meaningfully considered, they must be compared to something. The Court of Appeals has chosen to compare them to the standard of living during the marriage and to the husband's income potential. Nothing in the statutory scheme forbids that approach or directs that the comparison be made instead to the minimum amount necessary to provide food, shelter, and other basic necessities. The legislature has given the courts only limited guidance in this area. The expressed legislative policy is that spousal support may be awarded in an amount, and for a period of time, that is just and equitable, and that in making this determination the factors listed in ORS 107.105(1)(c) are relevant. It is significant that the legislature chose to express the standard in terms of what is just and equitable rather than solely in terms of need. We conclude, in light of this choice and in light of the statutory direction to consider such matters as the duration of the marriage and the parties' conditions, as well as purely financial matters, that the purpose of spousal support is not solely to prevent the supported spouse from becoming a public charge. The courts must attempt to do justice between the parties as well as provide the supported spouse with a minimally adequate living. The legislature has also indicated, however, its disapproval of sole reliance on spousal support by providing for its termination if the supported spouse has not, during a period of ten years, made reasonable attempts to become self-supporting. We conclude from this provision that the legislature has not deemed it just and equitable for one former spouse to look to the other for indefinite support if self-support at a reasonable level is possible. The 1977 amendment to ORS 107.105(1)(c), listing the need for training for suitable work or career objectives as a consideration in determining support matters, is additional evidence of that policy. What the courts must attempt, then, is to award spousal support, if it is appropriate, on terms that are equitable between the parties that take into account need and ability to pay and that further the goal of ending the support-dependency relationship within a reasonable time if that can be accomplished without injustice or undue hardship. We further conclude that, although each case must be considered on its own facts, it is proper to develop general principles, in addition to and consistent with those provided by the legislature, to the end that similar cases will be treated similarly. We approve the Court of Appeals' attempts to do so. In particular, we approve the general approach adopted in Kitson to determine the duration of spousal support, and the attempt, in determining the amount of that support, to reduce substantial financial inequality between the parties to marriages of long duration. It is proper and desirable, however, where the circumstances permit, to tailor the financial provisions of a dissolution decree in a way which will provide the wife an opportunity to increase her earning capacity and thus to eliminate the need for permanent support or to reduce the amount required. This approach may require a higher level of support payments at first while the wife acquires training or experience, even though she already has or is capable of earning an income minimally adequate for her support.