Court Opinion

ID: 9583679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:41:04.967345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:34.828649
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent, and would not, in this case, depart from the rule expressed in Bailey v. Bailey, 250 Ga. 15 (295 SE2d 304) (1982).
More than anything else, perhaps, we need a clear rule, which can be applied in almost every circumstance. That is what Bailey undertook to provide.
Now, we are requiring a court to take a lump sum settlement of a few thousand dollars and parse it according to what it might represent. As I understand the majority opinion, so much of the $14,000 settlement as represents lost past wages or reimbursement of expenses is subject to equitable division. On the other hand, so much of the $14,000 as represents pain and suffering (including physical pain, pain and suffering arising from diminished capacity to labor, and mental anguish not otherwise delineated) is not subject to.division. Additionally, the court must determine how much of the $14,000 is attributable to the loss of consortium claim on the part of the former wife, which, as I understand it, is to be her separate property and not capable of division.
There is this additional complication, however. The award may include lost future wages, which could be for a determined period of disability, or it could be for a permanent impairment of capacity to labor. Because any such factor has been reduced to a present sum of money, the court must discern (upon determining that the $14,000 includes either of those two factors) just how much is attributable to that period of time during the existence of and prior to the termination of the marriage. (Logically, of course, sums attributable to post-divorce future earnings could not be counted as a marital asset.) Additionally, all of the usual considerations relative to the reduction of a future entitlement to a present cash value must be applied.
That is simply too complex.