Court Opinion

ID: 9856596
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:51:52.486931+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:48.686439
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Justice,
specially concurring.
I concur in the majority opinion except as to that portion wherein the majority states “ * * * in certain circumstances a trial court may properly withhold retirement benefits from the property disposition in favor of a later distribution of such benefits if and when they actually accrue * * Although the majority opinion cites as authority for the above statement the recent decision of this Court in Shill v. Shill, supra, in my judgment, that statement was not necessary to the decision and was dicta. In Shill the Court stated “[a]n award of a lump sum to a non-employee spouse may be the better remedy where there are substantial amounts of other liquid assets * * ” or where retirement has occurred or is imminent. The Court in Shill noted that determination of the value of the pension benefits can be obtained and discounted to present value. “The presence of a substantial amount of other liquid assets will cushion the impact on the employee spouse of having to buy out the other spouse’s interest.”
Here and in Shill there exists “a substantial amount of other liquid assets.” In Shill the Court only reversed the trial court’s award of the cash value of the retirement benefits and remanded for additional evidence. Hence, I cannot agree that Shill established the doctrine attributed to it by the majority in the instant case. Rather, I continue to hold to the rule established in Ramsey v. Ramsey, supra, which decision, strangely enough, was authored by the author of the opinion in the instant case.