Court Opinion

ID: 9705525
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:10:22.253322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:12.271864
License: Public Domain

Morse, J.,
dissenting. I respectfully dissent from the reversal of the lump-sum payment in the event the husband predeceases the wife.
No matter how the family court labeled the conditional distribution of life insurance proceeds, it believed an equitable distribution of the marital estate required that provision. The critical point is not the label attached, but whether the policy was marital property. It was, and, the parties’ stipulation notwithstanding, the court was authorized to assign the benefits of the policy. Lewis v. Lewis, 149 Vt. 19, 22, 538 A.2d 170, 172 (1987) (court not bound by stipulation); see 15 V.S.A. § 751 (property owned by either or both of parties is subject to equitable division).
I gather the Court recognizes that Quesnel v. Quesnel, 150 Vt. 149, 549 A.2d 644 (1988), is overruled, because that case involved the assignment of life insurance benefits to protect a wife from losing maintenance should her husband predecease her.*
*582The Court has also overruled a statute, 15 V.S.A. § 762 (insurance benefits may be assigned to spouse), in cases where the purpose is to replace maintenance. The statute makes no such distinction. The purpose of § 762 is to accomplish what the trial court did here. The Court says that § 762 “merely authorizes the trial court to ‘assign insurance benefits to a spouse,’” 164 Vt. at 581, 674 A.2d at 791, which is, of course, what the family court did. The legislative history of § 762 is as simple and straight-forward as the statute itself. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Hoyt spoke about the purpose of the section by saying, “[Section 762] is reasonable. [An] insurance policy is another asset, like real property, and the court ought to be able to say what happens to it.” House Judiciary Committee, January 21, 1981, at 35.
The equitable balance of the family court’s distribution of property has been upset by the Court’s reversal. In such a case, we ordinarily remand so that the trial court may reconsider the financial balance it set out to accomplish between the parties. See Semprebon v. Semprebon, 157 Vt. 209, 216, 596 A.2d 361, 365 (1991) (property and maintenance awards interrelated — where court is to reconsider maintenance on remand, property award also reopened for reconsideration); Cleverly v. Cleverly, 151 Vt. 351, 357, 561 A.2d 99, 103 (1989) (any change in property settlement necessitates reexamination of maintenance).

 In Quesnel, wife was not the beneficiary, and the trial court ordered husband to name wife as the beneficiary instead. The trial court in Quesnel stated:
*582Defendant [husband] shall name the plaintiff [wife] primary beneficiary of the life insurance policy until defendant’s obligation to pay separate maintenance shall cease. . . . If the defendant predeceases the plaintiff, at which time the defendant’s obligation to pay separate maintenance has not yet ceased . . . then at that time the plaintiff shall place the proceeds of defendant’s life insurance policy in trust with a qualified banking institution to pay separate maintenance to the plaintiff ....
Quesnel v. Quesnel, No. S167-85 Wnd, slip op. at 6 (Washington Superior Court, Nov. 19, 1985).