Court Opinion

ID: 9762657
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:28:13.386269+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:36.266620
License: Public Domain

TAMILIA, Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result. While I agree in this case that determining the inheritance expected by the husband was too nebulous a consideration to effect equitable distribution, I believe the majority has carved out too absolute a rule in relation to inheritance as governed by 23 Pa.S. § 401(d)(5). There, it is stated:
§ 401(5) The opportunity of each party for future acquisition of capital assets and income is to be a consideration in equitable distribution.
The number and variety of possibilities of acquisition of capital assets and income as a result of inheritance are great. To foreclose all of those possibilities goes too far and unreasonably restricts the trial courts in considering factors of inheritance which have a strong, if not absolute, likelihood of vesting as opposed to situations such as the present one, which are rather nebulous.
The majority reads section 401(d)(5) in relation to section 401(e)(3) having to do with gifts and inheritance, which are not marital property except for their increase in value, *202holding that a potential inheritance could not be considered when, under 401(e)(3), after acquisition of an inheritance by a spouse, it would not be marital property. The conclusion thus drawn misses the point. It is not whether the inheritance, prospective or otherwise is marital property, but whether its presence or anticipation places one spouse in a superior financial position, thereby permitting a different weighing or distribution of marital property to make distribution equitable. I would make that distinction in resolving the issue of consideration of inheritance under section 401(d)(5).