Court Opinion

ID: 9721842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:10:49.475766+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:28.892141
License: Public Domain

OTIS, Justice
(dissenting).
In this decision, the majority applies a section of the Minnesota session laws, Minn. Stat. § 518.552, (1978) which was not effective until after this case was tried and then holds that it dictates that appellant who has not held a job outside her home for 23 years, may be denied all alimony after only four years have elapsed. In my opinion it is manifestly unjust and inappropriate to deprive a wife of an expectancy on which she had a right to rely after a marriage of 25 years and accordingly I respectfully dissent.
Although the judgment appealed from was entered prior to March 1, 1979, which was the effective date of Minn.Stat. § 518.-552, the majority emphasizes the fact the parties were willing to be bound by that amendment, and states that the amendment “effects a substantial change in the role of the courts” in awarding payments to a divorced spouse. I do not agree that Minn. Stat. § 518.552 (1978) effects a drastic change in the law of domestic relations. The statute calls for the trial court’s consideration of “all relevant factors” in decisions regarding maintenance payments. Those articulated include not only the financial resources of the party seeking maintenance and the time necessary to find employment, but requires the trial court to consider the parties’ standard of living, the duration of their marriage, the age, physical and emotional condition of the party seeking maintenance, and the other party’s ability to make such payments.
Nor could appellant have anticipated that in the absence of explicit statutory language, abolishing prior criteria for awarding maintenance, this court would construe the statute to deprive her of rights she *118might otherwise have expected. It is grossly unfair to assume she would stipulate to a statutory construction which would totally defeat her claims. If the statute works a substantial change in existing practice, then surely it is ex post facto with respect to this appellant, not only because her divorce decree was entered prior to the statute’s date of effectiveness, but because she was married at a time when the prevailing social custom made her professional career subordinate to her husband’s and required that she abandon a career to raise her son and keep house for her husband. This placed him under a corresponding duty to support her to the extent her earning capacity was permanently impaired. An award of permanent alimony is a substitute for his duty of support. See Loth v. Loth, 227 Minn. 387, 35 N.W.2d 542 (1949); Wilcox v. Wilcox, 222 Minn. 279, 24 N.W.2d 237 (1946). Recognizing a wife’s contribution to her husband’s career, this court has held that the support to which a divorced wife is entitled is not limited to that which will provide her with the bare necessities of life. She can expect a sum which will maintain her at a standard of living commensurate with what she and her husband enjoyed at the time of the dissolution. Arundel v. Arundel, 281 N.W.2d 663, 666-67 (Minn. 1977); Cooper v. Cooper, 298 Minn. 247, 214 N.W.2d 682 (1974); Botkin v. Botkin, 247 Minn. 25, 77 N.W.2d 172 (1956).
The parties were married in June 1954. Today, respondent, is a vice-president of Control Data Corporation, earning more than $120,000 per year. Appellant has not been employed since her son was born, at which time she abandoned a promising career as an executive secretary in order to fulfill the expected, traditional role of wife and hostess for a rising and successful business executive. She performed this role so well that in 1977 she was selected to serve as hostess to the board of directors of Control Data Corporation during a week-long meeting in Greece, which was her homeland and that of her husband. When her husband was being considered for his present position, appellant was herself interviewed to determine whether she could fill the role required of her in her husband’s business career. A number of years previously she had been anxious to resume a career of her own. Her husband forbade it stating that he was “not going to have any wife of mine pound a typewriter.”
There is no evidentiary support for the trial court’s finding that her earning capacity is substantial. There is no showing that at her age, now approximately forty-seven, she can be gainfully employed at her prior occupation after a lapse of more than twenty years. These factors have all been previously considered by our court. We stated in Ruprecht v. Ruprecht, 255 Minn. 80, 90, 96 N.W.2d 14, 23 (1959):
In exercising sound discretion the court may consider the ages of the parties and the earning ability of each; the conduct of their marriage and its duration; the station they occupy in life; the circumstances and necessities of each, the probability of continuing present employment into the future, as well as the capacity and ability to obtain new employment under changing circumstances and needs; the financial circumstances of the parties are shown by the property acquired, together with its value and income-producing capacity; the accumulated debts and liabilities if any; and all facts with respect to whether the property of the parties has been accumulated before or after marriage. The court may also consider all other matters disclosed by the evidence.
In Arundel v. Arundel, 281 N.W.2d 663 (Minn.1979); Cashman v. Cashman, 256 N.W.2d 640 (Minn.1977); and Bollenbach v. Bollenbach, 285 Minn. 418, 175 N.W.2d 148 (1970), we approved or required awards of alimony for an indefinite period, or in the alternative a substantial property division where the marriages were of long duration and the wives had abandoned potentially rewarding careers to devote their efforts to raising children and maintaining the family home. As we said in Bollenbach, “[the wife’s] role in the particular situation of these parties was to expend her youth and intelligence and talents in the home and *119with her children and in family-related activities of which her husband approved.” 285 Minn. 431, 175 N.W.2d at 157. Mrs. Bollenbach also forfeited any opportunity to pursue a career when she was married and we noted it would be unlikely she could find a job “adequate to satisfy the demands of the style of life enjoyed for almost 20 years.” Id. at 432, 175 N.W.2d at 157. Unlike the situation we faced in Ruzic v. Ruzic, 281 N.W.2d 502 (Minn.1979), here we have precise evidence regarding this husband’s earning capacity while that of his wife is entirely speculative.
Accordingly, I would continue the $2,000 per month payment indefinitely, subject only to a substantial change in circumstances at some later date.