Court Opinion

ID: 9735186
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:04:38.529674+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:55.892247
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Justice,
concurring.
I write specially to emphasize the limited context of our oft-stated “preference” for temporary rehabilitative support and the inequities that preference will visit upon the recipient of inadequate temporary rehabilitative support, if misunderstood. I also challenge the logic of our precedent that calls for automatic termination of support upon the recipient’s remarriage.
As the majority notes, rehabilitative support is varied in purpose. It may be used as a means to restore an economically disadvantaged spouse to independent economic status. See Heley v. Heley, 506 N.W.2d 715, 719-20 (N.D.1993). It also may be used to equalize the burden of the divorce, Wahlberg v. Wahlberg, 479 N.W.2d 143, 145 (N.D.1992), by increasing the earning capacity of the disadvantaged spouse. See Roen v. Roen, 438 N.W.2d 170, 172 (N.D.1989). Notwithstanding our “preference” for it, and our heavy reliance on it, temporary rehabilitative support may not enable an economically disad*713vantaged spouse to achieve an earning capacity that provides a pre-divorce standard of living or an equitable share in the reduction of that standard of living. While it may be a necessary means to the goal of economic rehabilitation, temporary rehabilitative support is often not sufficient, by itself, to obtain that end. Our “preference” for it, therefore, is merely a means of instructing that an award of temporary rehabilitative support should be a first step in the trial court’s exercise of discretion to achieve an equitable dissolution of the marriage.
Larry’s earning capacity of four times more than Dianne’s is typical of the general disparity in earning capacities between divorcing men and women. See Beals v. Beals, 517 N.W.2d 413, 418 (N.D.1994) (Levine, J., concurring). Temporary rehabilitative support that enables a spouse like Dianne to obtain education or training is unlikely to achieve the parity necessary for Dianne to maintain her prior standard of living or to bear no greater reduction than Larry in her post-divorce standard of living. A remedy for this permanent disparity in earning capacity and the inequitable burdens the disparity breeds is permanent support.
Permanent support is a means of compensating a spouse for the permanent economic disability caused by the husband/wife decision for the one to forgo career opportunities and advancement as the other enhances earning capacity. See Marcia O’Kelly, Entitlements to Spousal Support After Divorce, 61 N.D.L.Rev. 225, 246-50 (1985); see also LaVoi v. LaVoi, 505 N.W.2d 384, 386-87 (N.D.1993); Bullock v. Bullock, 354 N.W.2d 904, 911 (N.D.1984); Nastrom v. Nastrom, 284 N.W.2d 576, 581-82 (N.D.1979). That mutual decision is of benefit to both partners during the life of the marriage but dissolution of the marriage is a different story. Permanent support is the price to be paid for the earlier mutual decision about the role to be played by each marital partner when, in fact, the economically disadvantaged partner cannot obtain, after training and reasonable time, the income necessary to live a life comparable to the one prior to divorce or comparable to the higher earner’s post-divorce reduced standard of living. See Heley, supra at 720; Roen, supra at 172; Weir v. Weir, 374 N.W.2d 858, 863-64 (N.D.1985).
While there may be no ready formula for awarding spousal support, it is essential that temporary rehabilitative support and permanent support are understood to be two distinct remedies with distinct purposes. The need for rehabilitative support is easier to comprehend—a fairly immediate fix for a fairly obvious problem. However, it may be only a partial fix to accomplish economic rehabilitation of the disadvantaged spouse. Permanent support, often misunderstood or overlooked, is another part of the arsenal available to restore economic equity to a partner of a failed marital enterprise.
If support, whether rehabilitative or permanent, or both, is viewed properly as compensation for lost career opportunities and advancement, then a recipient’s remarriage should not automatically terminate that support. O’Kelly, supra at 258-60. While lack of good faith effort to achieve economic rehabilitation is a relevant factor in deciding whether support should be terminated, remarriage alone is not. Id. at 259; see also Bauer v. Bauer, 356 N.W.2d 897, 899-900 (N.D.1984). The argument is that support should not automatically terminate upon remarriage of the recipient if “the underdeveloped earning capacity of the recipient could not be or was not yet rehabilitated.” O’Kelly, supra at 261 n. 151. In other words, a deal is a deal and when the marital enterprise dissolves and the debt (ie. support) and assets are allocated between the parties, the debtor’s obligation to repay those debts should continue whether or not the creditor forms a new enterprise.
In omitting a remarriage termination provision, the trial judge may well have determined that all of the support was owed by Larry to rehabilitate and compensate Dianne, contingent not upon her remaining single, but upon her exercise of good faith effort to seek rehabilitation. Foreseeing no way Dianne would ever earn enough to maintain even a reduced standard of living comparable to Larry’s, the trial court ordered Larry to pay permanent support to compensate Dianne for her economic disability arising from the role she played during her marriage *714to Larry. Whether or not Dianne remarries, she is entitled to repayment of that debt, unless at the time of her remarriage, she has achieved full economic rehabilitation, that is, an income that approximates the one Larry achieved during the marriage.
Our modern view of marriage is that it is a partnership with each party making valuable contributions to the enterprise. Erickson v. Erickson, 384 N.W.2d 659, 663 (N.D.1986) (Levine, J., concurring). The common law duty of the husband to support the wife has been supplanted by the mutual duty of the husband and wife to support each other. See NDCC § 14-07-03. As Professor O’Kelly observes, when support was awarded to wives as a continuation of the duty to support and maintain wives during marriage, it made good sense to terminate the duty when the wife remarried and the new husband assumed the duty of support. O’Kelly, supra at 235-36. Today, however, post-divorce support is not a continuation of a duty to support. Instead, it is compensation for lost opportunities and advancement. As such, it remains a cost of the failed marriage and a debt of the one who benefited from the mutual decision to enhance only one career. Having nothing to do with the recipient’s new partner and everything to do with the recipient’s former partner and former partnership, it should continue until economic parity is obtained or, if such parity is unattainable, for the duration established in the judgment.