Court Opinion

ID: 9707523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:14:35.390637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:34.620504
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM J. CALLOW, J.
(concurring). Although I agree with the result in this case, I do not agree with the majority’s third formula for calculating a maintenance or property division award in cases where one spouse has contributed toward the other spouse’s pursuit of an advanced educational degree. See Supra at pp. 213, 214. As I stated in my concurrence to our decision in In re Marriage of Lundberg, 107 Wis. 2d 1, 15, 318 N.W.2d 918 (1982), I do not approve of an award formula which is based upon the dependent spouse’s future earning potential. Because the third formula is based upon future earning potential, I conclude that it goes beyond the compensation approved by this court in Lundberg, supra, and Roberto v. Brown, 107 Wis. 2d 17, 318 N.W.2d 358 (1982).
In Lundberg and Roberto, we approved compensation to the supporting spouse for his or her actual support contributions and foregone opportunities in his or her own career while the dependent spouse was pursuing an advanced education. See Roberto, 107 Wis. 2d at 22. In essence, we sought to make the supporting spouse whole *222by compensating for actual sacrifices made during the marriage. We did not approve of any compensation formula which would award the supporting spouse a share of the dependent spouse’s future earning potential.
The majority’s third formula compensates the supporting spouse according to the value of the other spouse’s enhanced earning capacity. The formula multiplies the spouse’s after-tax annual enhanced earnings (based on the difference between the projected professional salary and the mean income for a person of that category with a college education) by the spouse’s estimated remaining working years. Supra at p 214. This formula clearly is based upon the dependent spouse’s future earning potential because it estimates what the spouse could earn over his or her career and then awards the supporting spouse a share of that potential income. This result, I believe, goes beyond the compensation this court approved in Lundberg and Roberto.
The majority characterizes this formula as a return on the supporting spouse’s investment made in the other spouse’s enhanced earning capacity. We did not approve of such an award in Lundberg and Roberto. Those decisions recognized only compensation for actual sacrifices made during the marriage, not for lost expectations of sharing in future potential earnings. The majority’s formula goes beyond simple compensation for actual sacrifices made during the marriage and enters the category of an award based upon what the supporting spouse might have realized had the marriage continued.
As the majority recognizes, this type of award has been criticized because it fails to take into account unforeseen variables such as market opportunities, individual career choices and abilities, and premature death. See Supra at p. 214. I believe that these considerations make an award based on future potential earnings too speculative to be approved by this court. Accordingly, I *223do not approve of the majority’s third formula or any other award formula based upon future earning potential.
I am authorized to state that Justice Louis J. Ceci joins in this concurring opinion.