Court Opinion

ID: 9751421
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:25:53.149265+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:13.213656
License: Public Domain

CASTILLE, Justice,
dissenting.
At issue in this discretionary appeal is whether a cash distribution of $83,696.50, issued to appellant/father as the sole beneficiary of his mother’s estate, qualifies as “income” for purposes of appellant’s obligation to support his minor child under the Domestic Relations Code (Code), 23 Pa.C.S. § 101 et seq. The Code defines income as including, inter alia, (1) “income from an interest in an estate,” (2) “other entitlements to money or lump sum awards, without regard to source,” and (3) “any form of payment due to and collectible by an individual,” also without regard to source. Id. § 4302. The majority concludes that the $83,000 plus in cash was not income under *626any of these provisions. In so holding, the majority focuses primarily on the fact that the legislative definition of income does not include the word “inheritance.” Because the majority’s reading of the statute is contrary to its plain meaning and creates an unnecessary conflict between the statute and our procedural rules, I respectfully dissent.
In any case involving statutory interpretation, the inquiry must begin with an examination of the plain language of the relevant provision(s). Sphere Drake Ins. Co. v. Philadelphia Gas Works, 566 Pa. 541, 782 A.2d 510, 513 (2001); 1 Pa.C.S. §§ 1903(a), 1921(b). See also Commonwealth v. Burnsworth, 543 Pa. 18, 669 A.2d 883, 886 (1995) (when language of statute is clear and unambiguous, it must be given effect in accordance with its plain and common meaning); Guinn v. Alburtis Fire Co., 531 Pa. 500, 614 A.2d 218, 220 (1992) (object of all interpretation and construction of statutes is to ascertain and effectuate intention of General Assembly; best indicator of legislative intent is plain language of statute). Whatever vagaries may attend “inheritances” that do not result in a distribution of cash need not concern us here because, under any fair reading of the plain language of this statute, the distribution in this case must be deemed to be income.
Appellant’s mother’s primary asset was her house. Her estate did not convey the house itself to appellant but, instead, sold the house and distributed the unencumbered proceeds of that sale to appellant. The distribution provided appellant with the most liquid of assets, as proven by the fact that, on “the very day” he received the proceeds from the sale of the house, he “used them to purchase a home for himself and his current wife.” Brief of Appellant, 4. The issue before this Court is whether the lower courts erred in determining that this cash windfall should also be deemed available to meet the basic needs of appellant’s minor daughter from a previous relationship.
The Code’s definition of income is varied and intentionally quite broad. It encompasses such specific and traditional *627forms of income as “compensation for services,” “interest” income, and social security benefits. The definition also includes the no-less specific, though perhaps less common, “income from an interest in an estate or trust.” The statute goes on to designate as income such broad categories as “other entitlements to money .... without regard to source” and “any form of payment due to and collectible by an individual,” again without regard to source. In my view, the substantial cash distribution to appellant here qualifies as income under a plain reading of all of the latter three sub-definitions.
Since the provision governing an interest in an estate is the most specific of the three and is the primary focus of the majority opinion, I shall begin with it. The provision does not read “interest income” from the “corpus” of an estate or trust. Rather, it speaks broadly of any “income” which arises “from an interest” in an estate or trust. Appellant’s “interest” in his mother’s estate derived from his status as her sole beneficiary. That interest resulted in a cash distribution to appellant of over $83,000. A plain reading of the statute obviously requires the conclusion that this distribution was “income.” The General Assembly did not have to employ the word “inheritance,” and then address the various permutations that might arise when inheritances are involved, in order to make more plain its obvious intention.
In concluding that this provision does not apply to cash distributions from an estate, the majority finds significance in the fact that inheritances are common sources of income, and yet the General Assembly did not address inheritances by name. Initially, I would dispute the premise that inheritances are “common sources of income.” Nowhere in the record below is this premise supported. Were I called upon to take judicial notice of this proposition, I would conclude just the opposite. Even so, not all inheritances — and hence not all interests in an estate-involve income or income — generating bequests. Personal belongings, letters, mementos, family photographs and the like are all common bequests which, though *628they may have a very real and powerful emotional value, frequently have no discernible economic value. This provision of the Code wisely does not concern itself with such minutiae, but focuses instead on interests in an estate that produce income. Appellant’s interest in this particular estate unquestionably produced such income and it should be no less available to the support of appellant’s minor daughter than to the support of his “current” family.
Even if the statute drew the distinction perceived by the majority between the “corpus” of an inheritance, which the majority would deem not to be income, and income derived from a corpus, which the majority apparently would include as income, the majority’s conclusion when applied to the facts in this case is erroneous. Under this approach, the “corpus” presumably would be appellant’s mother’s house. But appellant did not simply pass into ownership of the house and live in it or retain it; instead, the house was converted into ready cash as part of the estate and the proceeds were distributed to appellant. Under the majority’s reading of the statute, these proceeds should be deemed “income” to appellant derived from his interest in the “corpus” house that passed through his mother’s estate and, ’thus, should be available for his support obligation.
Although I believe that the “interest in an estate” provision controls here, I also write to note my view that, even if it did not, I still could not agree with the majority opinion. As I have noted above, there are two broader definitions of income in the Code, either one of which plainly captures the cash distribution to appellant. These provisions speak of entitlements or payments due “regardless of source,” which obviously is broad enough to include inheritances. Whether the inheritance distributed to appellant in this case is deemed “an entitlement to money or lump sum award” or “any form of payment due to and collectible by an individual” it falls squarely within the General Assembly’s conception of income from all other sources.
*629The majority rather casually dismisses these two provisions in a single sentence, again focusing on the absence of the apparently talismanic word “inheritance.” However, legislative intent can not be clearer in this area. As to each of these provisions, the General Assembly specifically designated that the definition applied regardless of source. Inheritances are merely one of innumerable potential sources of entitlement to money or forms of payment due and collectible. To find controlling significance in a perceived omission, where the General Assembly speaks in broad terms which encompass all sources, turns statutory construction on its head. I cannot join in the majority’s unilateral creation of an “inheritance exception” to the broad, plain statutory language.
The majority further justifies its creation of an inheritance exception by noting its understanding of how “intact” families allegedly “treat inheritances.” According to the majority:
Including an inheritance in income available for support does not reflect how families in which parents live together treat inheritances. In an intact family, the receipt of a lump sum is likely to be used for purchases, investments or savings, and not for meeting living expenses. Therefore, considering the entire inheritance as income available for support is contrary to the purposes of the guidelines.
Majority op. at 286. I do not purport to know how intact families generally put inheritances to use nor does the record here illuminate such a sweeping conclusion; but I suspect that, to the extent there is any discernible “likelihood” in this area at all, it has more to do with the relative prosperity and needs of the particular family, and not whether the family is “intact” or not. I also suspect, again de hors this record, that there are plenty of families who spend inheritances on basic needs such as housing, automobiles, and education, rather than investing the money. In point of fact, appellant here illustrates the latter proposition where he spent his inheritance on a house, a basic living expense. I do not see how the majority’s unsupported assumptions about inheritances illus*630trate any conclusion about the proper interpretation of the Code.
Finally, I would also note that the majority’s ultimate holding is problematic in its own right. The majority essentially holds that appellant’s cash inheritance is not “income” under the Code, but nevertheless may qualify as an “asset” under the support guidelines, which would warrant an upward deviation. The majority’s conclusion in this regard raises a question of whether this Court’s procedural rules can, or should, establish a substantive support consequence where the Code itself, under the majority’s construction, has not. By ignoring the plain meaning of the statute, the majority creates an unnecessary discrepancy between the statute and this Court’s procedural rules.
In summary, I see no error in the conclusion of the courts below that the cash distribution to appellant here was income that was available in a calculation of his support obligation.1 Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
Justice NIGRO joins this dissenting opinion.

. There is also an issue as to the propriety of trial court’s calculation of the support order, which allocated the lump sum over the period of the child’s minority, as opposed to the year following the receipt of the lump sum. The allocation of a lump sum inheritance is within the discretion of the trial court. See Note to Pa.R.Civ.Pro. 1910.16 — 2(a)(8) ("The trial court has discretion to determine the most appropriate method for imputing the lump-sum awards as income for purposes of establishing or modifying the party’s support obligation’’). At the time of the allocation, the child was 18 months from reaching majority. In my view, allocating the award over 18 months rather than 12 months was not an abuse of the trial court’s discretion.