Court Opinion

ID: 9622788
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:23:20.276986+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:20.273774
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
concurring specially:
I concur in the Court’s opinion. However, regarding Part IY, while I agree that when the trial court reduced the wife’s interest in the retirement benefits to their present value and then determined that there were insufficient other assets to buy out that present value immediately, thus requiring periodic payments to satisfy that obligation, that interest must be included on that figure. However, if their are not other sufficient liquid assets which can be awarded to the non-employee spouse to offset that spouse’s interest in the retirement benefits, then it would usually be better to determine what percentage of the retirement benefits should belong to the non-retiring spouse and then have the retirement payments divided based on that percentage as they are received. As the Court stated in Shill v. Shill, 100 Idaho 433, 439, 599 P.2d 1004, 1010 (1979):
“An award of a lump sum to a non-employee spouse may be the better remedy where there are substantial amounts of other liquid assets and the retirement either has occurred, as in Ramsey [v. Ramsey, 96 Idaho 672, 535 P.2d 53 (1975) ], or where retirement is imminent, such as where the employee spouse is close to mandatory retirement age. In those cases a reasonably accurate calculation of the present value of the pension benefits may be made by reference to actuarial tables which would indicate the pensioner’s life expectancy and by discounting the sum that would be paid the pensioner during that period for the possibility the pension would not vest, reduced to present value. The presence of a substantial amount of other liquid assets will cushion the impact on the employee spouse of having to buy out the other spouse’s interest. However, where the time for retirement is uncertain and where the value of the employee’s monthly benefits is dependent upon the number of years of employment at retirement, a factor which may not be known at the time of the divorce, and where maintenance of the pension benefits after divorce will be from the employee spouse’s separate property, or the property of a subsequent community, a reasonably accurate calculation of the present value of the pension rights derived from community effort may not be possible. In these eases, the trial court should consider withholding the retirement rights from the property disposition and decreeing that the parties hold the rights to the benefits as tenants in common. If and when the employee spouse *544does obtain retirement benefits the trial court can then determine what portion of the rights were derived from community property and divide the payments accordingly.”