Court Opinion

ID: 9540694
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:18:58.38912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:00:12.161323
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the determination that I.C. 31-1-11.5-2(d) is not applicable to the distribution of marital assets in this case.
The parties to this appeal concede that I.C. 31-1-11.5-2(d)(3) includes pension benefits acquired during marriage but that are or may be payable after dissolution of the marriage. That interpretation of the statutory language may or may not be accurate. But whether or not the statute includes such future pension payments is not determinative in this appeal. The question before us is whether the statute changes the law so as to reopen the marital pot and to include therein assets which were not included at the time the pot lid was closed.
Here, the assets included or includable in the marital estate became fixed on October 10, 1984. The amendment in question became effective on September 1, 1985. In this regard, I am not persuaded by the dictum in Sable v. Sable (1987) 3d Dist.Ind.App., 506 N.E.2d 495, 497, which observed that the wife might have dismissed her petition and refiled it after the effective date of the amendment and that "[hjad she done so the amendment would clearly apply even though the separation date remained the same as before."
If such instance were to occur and the dismissal were occasioned solely by an effort to increase the size of the marital pot, I would assume that the trial court and/or this court might well consider the earlier "final separation" date as the controlling date, or recognize an exception to the premise that the date of filing of the petition is necessarily the date of final separation. In any event, I would not assume such a subterfuge would prove successful.
Furthermore, the fact remains that neither Mrs. Sable nor Mrs. Arthur in the case before us attempted to gain application of the 1985 amendment by dismissing and refiling. I agree with Judge Buchanan's conclusion that in the case before us, the 1985 Act was not applicable. The marital estate was fixed as of October 10, 1984, the date of the filing of the dissolution petition.
Had the General Assembly wished, it could have amended I.C. 31-1-11.5-11 (Burns Code Ed.Repl.1987) which provides that the court must divide the property of the parties or either of them acquired prior to final separation and which defines "final separation" as the date of the filing of the petition for dissolution. It did not choose to do so. One must assume, therefore, that the General Assembly intended that, insofar as future pension and retirement benefits were to be included in the marital estate, that determination must be made as of the date of the filing of the petition. Since such future rights were not includa-ble until September 1, 1986, they were not properly includable in the case before us.