Court Opinion

ID: 9572543
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:42:42.372952+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:33:27.965772
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I.
I agree with the Court that we are bound by the Supreme Court’s decision in McCarty v. McCarty, 453 U.S. 210, 101 S.Ct. 2728, 69 L.Ed.2d 589 (1981). Accordingly, the appellate district court decision must be reversed and the correct trial court decision of Judge L. Allan Smith should be reinstated. Although I believe that it may be appropriate to afford more protection to a former spouse of a retired service member, “Congress has weighed the matter and ‘[i]t is not the province of state courts to strike a balance different from the one Congress has struck.’ ” 453 U.S. at 236, 101 S.Ct. at 2743 (quoting Hisquierdo v. Hisquierdo, 439 U.S. 572, 590, 99 S.Ct. 802, 813, 59 L.Ed.2d 1 (1979)).
II.
The Court in this case states that “[t]he district court, on the basis of the record made in the magistrate court, concluded that the magistrate court’s decision did not divide the property of the parties in a just and reasonable fashion.” From that premise it is said to follow that this case should be remanded to the district court, so that “[t]he district court may take additional evidence” and enter a judgment “dividing the community property in such a method and proportion as it deems just.” I cannot agree, however, that this case on reversal of the district court appellate judgment should be remanded with such directions. Moreover, my initial view had been that we should simply reverse and remand to the appellate district court for reconsideration in light of McCarty, and allow a new district court opinion to emanate, just as this Court was recently accorded the same courtesy by the United States Supreme Court in Asarco, Inc. v. Idaho State Tax Commission, 445 U.S. 939, 100 S.Ct. 1333, 63 L.Ed.2d 773 (1980). In the same vein, I venture that the taking of additional evidence should be left to the magistrate trial court, rather than the appellate district court.
The sole issue before the district court, as stated by the district court in its Memorandum Decision of August 22, 1978, was “the propriety of the magistrate’s award of certain property, to wit, a military retirement pension, to the plaintiff-respondent as his separate property.” The district court stat*89ed in its Judgment of September 7, 1979, that “all other issues [have] been waived, this Court [having] heretofore affirmed the determination of the Magistrate except as to the disposition of proceeds receivable by defendant of retirement benefits from the United States Air Force.” The only modification the appellate district court made of the magistrate’s decision was a contrary holding on the status of the military retirement benefits. The Court’s directions on remand in essence tend to allow an opportunity to the district court to do indirectly what it cannot do directly — make an offsetting award to the non-beneficiary spouse which the Court at the same time declares would be unauthorized; this may seem to some to be in direct circumvention of the mandates of the Supreme Court found in Hisquierdo, supra. Therefore, I dissent from that portion of the Court’s opinion.
III.
At the same time I do not entertain the same disenchantment with the McCarty opinion as seems to flavor the Court’s opinion in this case, other than I think it regrettable that the Court did not tackle the issue earlier. It must also be noted that the dissenting opinion of Justice McQuade in Ramsey v. Ramsey, 96 Idaho 672, 535 P.2d 53 (1975), properly overruled today by the Court (in which I concur) insofar as it conflicts with McCarty, anticipated the Supreme Court’s opinion in McCarty and very well may have served as the prototype for the opinion authored by Justice Blackmun and concurred in by five other justices. As Justice McQuade wrote seven years ago that a state cannot rewrite Congressional declarations, so has Justice Blackmun added: Nor can the Supreme Court. Rather, “Congress may well decide, as it has in the Civil Service and Foreign Service contexts, that more protection should be afforded a former spouse of a retired service member. This decision, however, is for Congress alone.” 453 U.S. at 236, 101 S.Ct. at 2743.
Judicial restraint is a commendable virtue.