Court Opinion

ID: 9531586
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:13:15.498453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:31.891062
License: Public Domain

SCHUMACHER, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I believe the pension was appellant’s nonmarital property, and should not have been considered in determining his maintenance obligation.
In examining appellant’s pension, the majority engages in a questionable analysis. Initially, it is not persuasive that Kruschel v. Kruschel, 419 N.W.2d 119 (Minn.Ct.App.1988) is distinguishable simply because in that case the pension benefits were previously awarded, while here they are not. The prior award was important in Kruschel because:
[n]o language in the original decree supports the argument that anything other than a roughly equivalent division of marital assets was intended.
Kruschel, 419 N.W.2d at 122.
This is not the situation in the instant case. Examination of the original terms of the dissolution indicates that respondent was awarded a majority of the parties’ property including the household goods and furnishings as well as the home. The only tangible property appellant was awarded was a car. He was also awarded various insurance policies, tax deductions and a tax refund, but this does not appear to achieve an equal distribution of the parties’ property. To now allow appellant’s pension to be invaded to support appellant’s maintenance obligation further skews the asset distribution in favor of respondent.
Secondly, the trial court award of permanent maintenance to respondent does not appear determinative. While the majority’s observation that the trial court’s award of permanent maintenance recognizing respondent’s long term needs is appropriate, this does not require consideration of appellant’s pension in determining his maintenance obligation. Such inclusion of the pension burdens appellant not with a permanent award subject to modification, see Minn.Stat. § 518.64, subd. 2 (Supp.1987), but with a perpetual award he must pay no matter what his circumstances.
The fundamental difference between the majority and the dissent in this case appears to pertain to a presumption regarding the pension. Absent evidence that the *463trial court considered a party’s pension in a dissolution occurring before Elliott v. Elliott, 274 N.W.2d 75 (Minn.1978) in which the supreme court allowed a pension to be considered as property, the majority would presume the pension to be income and therefore available to satisfy a maintenance obligation. Under the same circumstances, I would presume that the pension is the property of the party who earned it and that this is not changed by the court’s lack of reference to it in the dissolution proceedings.