Court Opinion

ID: 9746751
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:35:55.429001+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:16.497189
License: Public Domain

Peck, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part. I concur with the resolution reached by the majority on all issues except that relating to maintenance by defendant of his current life in*153surance policy for the benefit of the plaintiff. As to this latter issue I must dissent.
I have no quarrel, as such, with the holding of the majority that, “in cases where an insurance policy is already in effect, [15 V.S.A.] § 762 authorizes the trial court to order that the insured party maintain the policy for the benefit of the spouse.” In this case, however, the court went beyond simply ordering defendant to maintain his existing policy. The court’s order purported to offer defendant an option to maintain either his current policy or “another life insurance policy of like amount.”
Passing for the moment the probable prejudice to the defendant resulting from the court’s order, I note that, to the extent the order addresses the insurance policy requirement, it is couched in the alternative. Thus, at the very outset, the order violates our own general rule that “a judgment must not be ... in the alternative.” Lash Furniture Co. v. Norton, 123 Vt. 226, 228, 185 A.2d 734, 736 (1962). I do not find this precedent to have been overruled or modified.
Of even more egregious concern, however, is the fact that the alternative insurance segment of the order is not supported at any level as to its viability. The findings, certainly, are a blank on the question, as well they might be; I am unable to find even a scintilla of evidence from which the trial court might have determined that defendant’s option to obtain another policy was at all viable. It was simply plucked out of the air, sua sponte, without the slightest opportunity afforded defendant to present evidence on the question should he desire to do so.
It is no answer to say that defendant failed to request a finding, and, therefore, waived it. See V.R.C.P. 52(a). I cannot believe that the majority intends to go so far as to hold that a judgment does not require some evidence in the record to support it. It is puzzling, moreover, how the defendant could be expected to request a finding on a matter that was not even in the case, and which he had no earthly reason to anticipate.
I cannot, of course, overlook the question of prejudice. Normally, error which does not result in prejudice will not require reversal. Corti v. Lussier, 140 Vt. 421, 424, 438 A.2d 1114, 1116 (1981). But in this case, without the benefit of evidence, nothing can be determined one way or the other. We can only speculate on the possibilities (obviously, defendant could not present or ar*154gue facts outside of the record in his appeal to this Court, even though he never had the opportunity to do so below).
The possibilities of prejudice here, however, are several and indeed, probable. Defendant is older now than at the time his current policy went into effect; consequently, the premiums payable on a second policy would be greater. Defendant’s health has been poor in the past, raising the question of how insurable at all he is now, and whether the premiums, because of his greater age and past health problems, would be within his means. Defendant is a state employee; it is, therefore, possible that the source of his current insurance is through participation in the state group plan, partially funded by the state. If he is in fact a member of this plan, his participating contributions are well below the premiums he would be required to pay for life insurance outside of the employees’ plan, assuming he is insurable at all.
This case is a good example of why orders in the alternative are not favored. See Lash, 123 Vt. at 228, 185 A.2d at 736. If they are ever justified, they are a mockery and a cruel practical joke if they are not based on sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the alternatives are truly viable and not merely window dressing, more hollow and seeming than real. It may be true that alternatives, in any context, are designed as an opportunity to select the most advantageous or desirable or the least objectionable of two possibilities. But they are not true alternatives at all if one of the choices is an impossibility. That may or may not be the case here; we just don’t know. It is an order without support and potentially prejudicial.
The majority declines to review the issue addressed in this dissent on the grounds that it was not raised below, nor appealed or briefed here. I believe this claim is not completely accurate. In any event, assuming it is correct, it is overly technical and inconsistent with actions taken by this Court in other cases in the interests of justice.
Defendant recites in his brief:
The literal reading of [15 V.S.A. § 762] does not allow or authorize any court to require a party to a divorce [to] contract for, maintain, take out, or pay premiums on an insurance contract.
*155It is only authority to order an assignment of any insurance benefits in existence at the time of the hearing on the merits.
If the option given defendant, to take out another policy “of like amount” was viable, and defendant was in a position to take advantage of it, this language of the brief is inclusive of both options; in fact, it seems to slant more strongly toward the alternative. In any event, the first sentence expresses a clear objection to both options: “maintain, take out, or pay premiums.”
The point is not the merits of defendant’s position. It merely demonstrates that the issue was adequately raised and briefed.
This Court has, in past cases and in the interests of justice, addressed, sua sponte, issues which had not been raised or briefed: “We have addressed the issue upon our own motion because of its ‘possible adverse effect on the fair administration of justice ....’” State v. Bergerson, 144 Vt. 200, 204, 475 A.2d 1071, 1074 (1984) (citation omitted). Apparently, the majority intends to be extremely selective in deciding when it will and will not “do justice” vis-a-vis a purely technical obstruction.
There are analogous circumstances under which this Court has, many times, bypassed technical faults by treating an improper procedure as something else which would have been appropriate. Thus, in State v. Dean, 148 Vt. 510, 536 A.2d 909 (1987), an attempt to reach this Court improperly by a direct appeal was treated “as if it were based on a post-conviction relief proceeding and [thereby reached] the merits.” Id. at 512 n.l, 536 A.2d at 911 n.l. In another case we treated an attempted appeal “as a petition for extraordinary relief properly filed in this Court.” Pfeil v. Rutland District Court, 147 Vt. 305, 308, 515 A.2d 1052, 1055 (1986). Similarly, in a third decision, involving a juvenile, an attempt to appeal to this Court under V.R.A.P. 5(b)(1) (interlocutory appeal) was denied, but, in the interests of justice to the appellant, the trial court’s order was treated as final, State v. Lafayette, 148 Vt. 288, 292, 532 A.2d 560, 562 (1987); a potential injustice was thus obviated.
New areas of human concern are as tightly and as mystifyingly bound up with the red tape of technicalities as the law. To the average layman they are often as frustrating and arcane as a dead language: “[I]n these nice sharp quillets of the law, Good faith, I *156am no wiser than a daw.”* But some technicalities are essential; else the law would sink into a morass of cases that go on endlessly and defy resolution. In short, technicalities, however mysterious, are designed to expedite justice, not to frustrate it or to work injustice; they should be resorted to judicially and fairly. Among the worst enemies of justice, it seems to me, are those who adhere rigidly and literally to technical details without regard for the inherent power of the courts, within reasonable limits, to do justice under the law.
The insurance issue as raised by the defendant in this case may lack some literal specificity as it relates to the option. It seems to me, nevertheless, as I have suggested and, I think, demonstrated above, it is sufficiently within the broader scope of the issue as it does appear in his brief, to justify being “treated as” included therein, at least by a fair implication. Applying the same principle employed to overcome technicalities in those cases cited above (and many others), the interests of justice would also be served here.
I would affirm as to the other issues and reverse and remand for further proceedings on the life insurance matter.

 Shakespeare, Henry VI, Pt. 1, Act II, Sc. 4.