Court Opinion

ID: 9606814
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:52:48.135524+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:07:04.720395
License: Public Domain

BENCH, Judge
(concurring specially):
The main opinion erroneously asserts that Howell v. Howell, 806 P.2d 1209 (Utah App.1991), established a general rule that a divorcing couple’s standard of living is to be determined as of the time of trial as if the parties had not separated. This court’s opinion in Howell was based upon the unique facts of that case. Id. at 1212. The substantial intervening increase in the husband’s income was treated as “deferred income” earned during the years prior to separation. Id. Given the unique “deferred income” analysis used in Howell, it clearly does not stand for the proposition that the standard of living should generally be determined as of the time of trial. Howell is the exception, not the general rule.
This case validates the concerns I expressed in my supplemental opinion in Howell. Id. at 1214 (Bench, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part). How can a *1030trial judge possibly evaluate a divorcing couple’s joint standard of living at the time of trial when the couple has not lived together for many years? An increase in income during separation should be considered in determining a party’s ability to pay alimony, but it has absolutely no impact on the couple’s actual standard of living.
The joint standard of living enjoyed by the Hoaglands “during” their marriage necessarily terminated upon their separation. The trial court expressly found: “Defendant’s position in the business world was arrived at after his separation from the plaintiff.” His increase in income cannot logically be said to have affected the standard of living they actually enjoyed during their marriage — the standard of living to which the trial court correctly found she had become accustomed.
The trial court’s ruling in this case should be affirmed, not because the trial court has discretion to depart from the rule provided in Howell, but because the trial court correctly followed the general rule, which is to look at the standard of living actually enjoyed.
I therefore concur specially.