Court Opinion

ID: 9543837
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:49:43.176286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:11:18.945503
License: Public Domain

Kaplan, J.
(concurring). I concur in the affirmance because I cannot say that the judge’s decision was an abuse of his wide discretion under § 34.1 believe I would have reached a different decision if I had been the trial judge. In my view the husband had a tenable claim to a substantially larger share in the division of assets. Take the issue of “standard of living” or “life-style.” The couple’s income was almost $250,000, including the husband’s salary of $38,400. They jointly owned and lived in a house worth $865,000. Their habits of living over a period of twelve years evidently were commensurate with this affluence. By the judgment appealed from the husband gives up his interest in the house, receives $200,000 from the wife’s $3,000,000 (not counting the house), and is remitted to his salary from a relatively low administrative post and the accompanying use of an apartment. The post is not tenured. The husband has physical custody of the children nearly half the time and has *123to meet the related expenses: he may be expected to strive not to be wholly outdone by the wife when it comes to providing recreation and travel for the children. Certainly the husband is not reduced to penury, but can it be fairly said that his security, and his sense of security, have not been radically and unduly altered? These are the deeper aspects of “life-style.” The decision below may reflect too strongly a notion that inherited wealth should remain in blood lines. I question, also, whether the decision would have corresponded if all stayed the same except that the husband had the wealth and the wife the administrative job.