Court Opinion

ID: 9769684
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:58:42.076994+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:06.839184
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR, Judge,
concurring.
I concur. In my partial dissent in Hoffmann v. Hoffmann, 676 S.W.2d 817, 829 (Mo. banc 1984) I protested because the Court, after departing from prior Court of Appeals cases in adopting the “source of funds” rule, then saddled the plaintiff with a record made under a different legal theory. The principal opinion wisely directs a remand.
Here, just as in Hoffmann, the defendant husband is not a controlling stockholder. The test set out in footnote 1 of the principal opinion (“that the husband could influence the amount of compensation paid to him, and that the compensation had not ... been ‘adequate.’ ”) announces a standard appropriate for a case of this kind, as to when previously-owned corporate shares may be found to be marital property.
I would question the necessity for a showing of “adequacy” of salary and dividends paid in a case in which the shareholder spouse owns an absolute majority of the shares, so that he or she could dictate the amounts to be paid in salary and dividends. But the courts can decide cases in this category as they arise.