Court Opinion

ID: 9722422
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:30:07.080857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:35.216254
License: Public Domain

LAWRENCE G. CRAHAN, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Viewed in context, I do not find the separation agreement to be ambiguous. The agreement calls for an initial payment of $400 per month in child support and $400 per month in maintenance. These payments would cease upon Husband’s retirement or severance of service from the St. Louis City Fire Department, when wife was to begin receiving her marital interest in Husband’s pension, which amounted to $800 per month. Upon receipt of such funds, Wife’s inability to fully provide for her needs would presumably cease and there would no longer be any need for maintenance.
Any other construction of the agreement would render it unconscionable. The agreement expressly provides that the $800 payment Wife was to receive from the St. Louis City Fire Department was “as settlement of [Wife’s] marital interest in his pension.” As the majority acknowledges, it is improper to classify the distribution of one spouse’s interest in a civil service pension as maintenance. In re Marriage of Burns, 903 S.W.2d 648, 652 (Mo.App.1995). Although the decision in Peaslee v. Peaslee, 844 S.W.2d 569, 571 (Mo.App.1992), can be read to suggest that the court is bound by a misclassification of property division as maintenance if that was the parties’ intent, this dicta was not essential to the court’s ultimate holding. The court did not find that the pension benefits misclassified as maintenance were modifiable. The parties had agreed that child custody, visitation, support and statutory maintenance were modifiable. Id. at 570. The court ultimately held that modification of the pension benefits was expressly precluded by the terms of the separation agreement. Id. at 572.
*371Allowing the parties’ misclassification of a marital interest in pension benefits as maintenance to render that interest modifiable would, as a matter of law, violate public policy and render the agreement unconscionable. It would violate public policy because neither the dissolution court nor this court would be able to evaluate the reasonableness of a division of marital property dependent upon future, unspecified events. Surrender of marital interests in property in exchange for less than a sum certain is unconscionable.
Although I would affirm the judgment, I note that nothing in the majority opinion compels a different result on remand. The error identified by the majority is the trial court’s conclusion that the misclassified marital interest in Husband’s pension was not modifiable as a matter of law. There is, however, ample evidence to support a finding that modification was also contrary to the parties’ intent. Nothing in the majority opinion precludes such a finding on remand.
For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the judgment.