Court Opinion

ID: 9536546
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:02:00.979743+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:42.807678
License: Public Domain

WOLFE, Chief Justice
(concurring).
I agree that the judgment of the lower court upon which he based his division of the property and in regard to which various factors were weighed against each other was not such that it could be classed as arbitrary. I further agree that the lower court “evidently felt that she had a *203better claim to the home than he did” but I cannot agree that the court concluded “that it would be worth $5,000 to her■”. (Emphasis mine.) The court’s valuation of the home was not based upon what it was worth to Mrs. Lawlor but upon its actual value. The “take away” figure placed on the home by the court, the payment of which by defendant would permit him to take it, could under the evidence, be taken to be its market value. The defendant said he thought the home was worth from $4800 to $5000. That the lower court allowed Mr. Lawlor to pay $5,000 as a condition of requiring her to relinquish the home, which figure was beyond what he could raise, is not an abuse of discretion. That it would result in her keeping the home and in his being compelled to relinquish it, leaves the parties in the same position as if the court had given her the home without any right on his part to acquire it at a price. That would not involve an abuse of discretion under the circumstances of this case, one being that she had been for years the mainstay of the family. Hence, the court’s adding a clause permitting him to- acquire it at a price not feasible for him could then not be an abuse of discretion.