Court Opinion

ID: 9672762
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:59:45.902175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:18.200233
License: Public Domain

Allen, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent. I believe that the parties only intended that the insurance provision, which was tied to the support provisions of the divorce judgment, serve as security to make sure that the noncustodial parent’s support obligation was satisfied in the event of his death prior to the termination of that obligation. The insurance proceeds should be held as a fund for satisfaction of the support obligation and, once the obligation is terminated, the balance should go to decedent’s estate.1 This was the conclusion reached by another panel of this Court under similar facts. See In re Monreal Estate, 126 Mich App 60; 337 NW2d 312 (1983). In both Monreal and the instant case the divorce judgment required the father to maintain life insurance with the children named as beneficiaries; both required the father to provide financial support until the *248children reached 18 or completed high school, whichever was later. In Monreal the children were "irrevocable beneficiaries * * * until the plaintiffs [father’s] obligation to support said minor children has been completed fully as above provided”. In the instant case, the children were beneficiaries "so long as his (father’s) duty to support them shall continue”. In both cases the father died when one child was still a minor and the other children had attained majority, and in both cases there remained more than enough life insurance proceeds to meet the deceased father’s likely financial support to the minor child.
The question in both cases was what to do with the excess. Does it go to all the children, just to the one minor child as of the date of the father’s death, or to the father’s estate? Monreal held the excess goes to the father’s estate. The majority in the instant case hold the excess goes to the remaining minor child. This is an apparent windfall. Because the two cases are so basically similar and because I find Monreal the better reasoned opinion, I conclude that the trial court’s decision should be reversed and judgment entered in favor of appellants, pursuant to GCR 1963, 820.1(7), or, alternatively, that an evidentiary hearing should be conducted to ascertain the intent of the parties. I believe that the evidence that this particular provision was part of a negotiated property settlement was insufficient. Whether the Genesee County Friend of the Court requires inclusion of the insurance provision at issue before it will approve the judgment is especially relevant in determining the parties’ intent.
The judgment should be reversed.

 While decedent had prepaid his support, the amount owed by the estate cannot be finally ascertained until the support obligation is terminated under the judgment since support payments could be modified in response to a petition for an increase filed by the custodial parent.