Court Opinion

ID: 9849705
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:44:46.236321+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:24.981873
License: Public Domain

Judge Horton
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the result reached in that portion of the majority opinion which reverses the conclusion of the trial court that one-third of the value of the certificates of deposit on the date of separation was marital property. The trial court found defendant-husband and his sister were given record ownership of certain certificates of deposit “so that the money might be easily accessed during a period of their mother’s hospitalization.” Defendant testified that “she [his mother] *253wanted my sister and me to be able to transport to her or pay on her behalf funds that were necessary for her own up-keep, medical expenses and so forth, but it was a convenience for her.” Thus defendant and his sister clearly held the certificates in trust for their mother. I would, therefore, reach the classification question and reverse on the basis that the trial court’s own findings do not support its conclusion that the certificates were marital property.
I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which states “the trial court may not consider, as it is irrelevant under the circumstances of this case, the source of a spouse’s separate property as a distributional factor.” No authority is cited for that position. I would agree that in most cases the source of a spouse’s separate property is not relevant to a distributional decision. However, in the instant case the marital estate’s entire interest in the Davie County tree farm came from gifts by defendant’s mother.
Appellant-wife does not quarrel with the finding of the trial court that the “gifts [of an interest in the tree farm] were made to each party individually so as to avoid the effects of the federal gift tax.” Following the “separate” gifts, the parties then “titled the property as a tenancy by the entirety . . . .” Had defendant’s mother titled the interest in the tree farm directly to the parties as tenants by the entireties, no one would have questioned the use of the source of the gift as a distributional factor. In the case before us, the parties merely added another step as a result of the donor’s tax planning efforts.
In Hunt v. Hunt, 85 N.C. App. 484, 355 S.E.2d 519 (1987), the funds for the down payment on the marital home came partially from defendant-husband’s separate property and partially from money supplied by the wife’s grandmother. In Hunt, the wife’s grandmother gave checks to both the husband and wife. Id. at 488, 355 S.E.2d at 522. There was testimony that the grandmother gave money to defendant-husband “for [gift] tax purposes only . ...” Id. at 490, 355 S.E.2d at 522. We held in Hunt that the trial court erred in finding that all the checks were gifts only to the wife and remanded for a new distribution decision. We noted that on remand the “trial court may find it appropriate to consider the manner in which the marital property was acquired.” Id. at 489, 355 S.E.2d at 522. Therefore, I do not believe the trial court erred in the case sub judice in considering the manner in which the tree farm was acquired.