Court Opinion

ID: 9692820
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:07:25.844884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:37.104298
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring). While I concur in the result, I write separately because I am concerned that the majority may not have given the trial court adequate guidance upon remand.
The majority vacates the order of the circuit court and remands the cause to Judge Jones to clarify his intent at the time of rendering the judgment regarding the status of several issues: the nature of the ownership of the property (i.e., joint tenancy or tenancy in common) following the divorce judgment, the nature of the obligation to sell, the financial obligation imposed upon Vallerie Lutzke, and whether — if a financial obligation were imposed — it was to be secured. (P. 49.)
The majority also states that “[i]n the present case . . . we know of no reason why Judge Jones cannot ascertain his intent or lack of intent at the time of the rendering of the judgment.” (P. 44.) (Emphasis added.) The majority thus recognizes that the trial judge, like the parties, may “have formed no intent, expressly or impliedly, in respect to severance as a part of the divorce itself.” (P. 42.)
The majority does not say, however, what the trial judge is to do on remand if, in fact, he did not, at the time of the original judgment, have an intent with regard to any of the specific issues for which we remand. I would have preferred that this court expressly instruct the trial judge that if, at the time of rendering of the judgment, he had formed no intent on these issues, his function, upon remand, is, insofar as possible, to reconstruct his original dispositional scheme for the property division and to issue an order harmonizing the original *51dispositional scheme with the husband’s subsequent death.
I am authorized to state that Justice William G. Callow and Justice Donald W. Steinmetz join this concurrence.