Court Opinion

ID: 9717088
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:57:48.436077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:51.133673
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE KASSERMAN, dissenting: I am unable to agree with the conclusion of the majority that the trial court erred in placing a value of $22,500 on certain tools and a value of $7,800 on certain personal items, including photographic equipment, and awarding the same to the wife as a portion of her share of the marital property of the. parties; therefore, I respectfully dissent from the decision of the majority in reversing the trial court’s order making such awards. The court assigned a value of $22,500 to said tools based on the testimony of the wife and other witnesses. The wife also testified that certain other specific property, including the photographic equipment, was valued at $10,000. The court placed an evaluation of $7,800 on such property. The sole basis for the determination that the court erred in awarding such property to the wife was that the tools, cameras, scuba gear, and hunting and fishing equipment were either used by the husband in his hobbies or were useful only to the husband. It is my opinion that such a decision results in a misapplication of the settled principle of law that the value of the property is its market value, which has been defined as “the price which a willing purchaser will pay to a willing seller in a voluntary transaction.” (Cf. In re Marriage of Melnick (1984), 127 Ill. App. 3d 102, 108, 468 N.E.2d 490, 495; In re Marriage of Olsher (1979), 78 Ill. App. 3d 627, 635, 397 N.E.2d 488, 494.) The majority bases its decision to reverse the trial court’s award of these items of personal property to the wife on the determination that they would be more useful to the husband than to the wife. The majority’s determination improperly injects the element of usefulness into the elements to be considered by the court in dividing marital property and ignores the fact that the wife would not be required to retain property which this court has determined is useless to her but is wholly free to sell such property at the price at which she and her witnesses evaluated it in their sworn testimony. The wife and her witnesses testified that such items of property had a fair cash market value in excess of or equal to the valuation placed on such items by the circuit court. For these reasons, I would affirm the decision of the trial court in placing a value on the tools, cameras, scuba gear, and hunting and fishing equipment of the parties and in awarding such items to the wife as a portion of her share of the marital property.