Opinion ID: 2617612
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the date for the valuation of the enhancement in the husband's pension fund

Text: The husband challenges the trial court's valuation of the jointly-acquired portion of the retirement fund. He asserts that the divisible portion of the fund should have been valued at $79,226 rather than $100,000. He arrived at the lower figure by using the parties' separation date (which he asserts is April 15, 1990) as the cut-off point for determining the value of the marital component to be computed. The wife urges that the valuation date should be the date of trial. At the time of trial (February 24 and 27, 1992), the husband, although he had not yet retired, was eligible to draw from the retirement fund. According to him, the company allows pensions to be drawn once a year. If he had retired on July 1, 1992, he would not have received his initial payout until one year from the next September (September 1993). This delay is imposed to give the company time to liquidate investments. The record is not clear whether he would have been entitled to a lump-sum payment or to installments due over a period of time. Before any price tag can be placed upon the divisible retirement component, the trial court must first establish its valuation date. Oklahoma jurisprudence provides no definitive rule to be used for the appraisal of marital property. The issue pressed is of utmost importance since in complex, megabuck urban divorce contests protracted pretrial proceedings and other calendar delays often produce a significant interval between the commencement of an action and the time of trial. During the interim, property values might not  and probably would not  remain constant. In other jurisdictions, in which the equitable distribution system for spousal property is in force, there has been no clear judicial consensus on the cut-off time for valuation of marital assets. In some states the date of trial is used. [33] In others, courts utilize the date the petition was filed [34] or the divorce is granted. [35] Some states have approved trial court decrees that anchor the value of marital property to the date of separation or specifically recognize that temporal point as a benchmark date. [36] Many courts have declined to fashion a rigid rule, holding the date of valuation is to be determined by the trial court after due consideration to all of the circumstances in a case. [37] We prefer to afford the litigants flexibility of the latter approach. While the cut-off date must always be tailored to suit the circumstances of a case, the court should, in the interest of certainty, set a reasonable temporal point for valuing each marital asset, making proper allowances for different types of conjugal property. Trial courts should generally be free to choose the most appropriate appraisal date for the pension interest like that in contest here. Because nearly three years have lapsed since the February 27, 1992 trial hearing, we limit the court's discretion in this case by holding that for this post-remand proceeding the valuation point of the marital component in the husband's pension must be anchored to the date of original trial (February 27, 1992). In equity cases we may generally render that judgment which the trial judge should have rendered. [38] We do affirm today all the in-kind and monetary nisi prius awards except only that which affects the retirement fund's apportionment. The trial court's post-remand monetary award for the wife's share of the marital component in the husband's retirement fund shall operate with effect from the date of its post-remand entry. [39] Incomplete appraisal proof requires that we remand this cause for the retirement interest's nisi prius re-valuation. The critical evidentiary deficiency disclosed by the record comprises the absence of: (1) the exact valuation date ordered and used and (2) the fund's total value on the critical established appraisal date. The trial court set the sum of $50,000 as the wife's one-half marital interest in the pension fund's divisible enhancement, but the record is utterly silent on how that figure came to be determined. The February 27th valuation date, ordered by this pronouncement to be used upon remand, calls for appraisal evidence which targets that temporal point. The proof must (1) include the critical pension plan financial reports and (2) identify each of the sources which contributed to the fund's in-marriage appreciation in value as well as (3) show the amount of in-marriage monetary contributions by the husband and that of the employer's participatory payments. [40] If the post-remand valuation is to withstand appellate scrutiny, the proof must overcome the present deficits in the appraisal evidence of record. Accordingly, we remand the cause for further proceedings in which (a) February 27, 1992 is to be used as the valuation date of the pension fund and (b) the extent of the husband's nondivisible separate property in the retirement fund as well as the marital estate's divisible interest must be computed by some equitable and acceptable accounting method and (c) on re-appraisal, the trial court shall divide equitably [41] the retirement fund's divisible component of the in-marriage enhancement.