Court Opinion

ID: 9646786
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:11:13.564901+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:41.779706
License: Public Domain

RENDLEN, Judge,
dissenting.
Married in August of 1976, the parties had lived together 15 months when the wife filed for dissolution on November 16, 1977. Judgment was entered July 30, 1979. During trial, the court noted that the parties had only been “legally ... married about three years” and ruled that evidence concerning appellant-wife’s status as a homemaker during their prior marriage was irrelevant to the issue of maintenance. I believe the trial court properly ruled that under § 452.335.1, RSMo 1978, such evidence is not germane to the question of maintenance and accordingly I dissent from the majority’s holding that “[ujnder the circumstances before us, evidence of that first marriage is relevant to determine the amount of maintenance and for what period of time.” The majority cites no authority for this proposition but bases its conclusion on the notion that the previous conduct (before the 1975 divorce) of the parties, which includes their statuses as may have existed in a prior dissolved marriage, should weigh upon the husband’s responsibility to provide maintenance and the wife’s corresponding right to receive the same growing out of this marriage of three years’ duration and in which merely 15 months passed until the dissolution action was commenced. The prior divorce determined all rights to alimony or maintenance for the marriage ending in 1975. The effect of that decree and any obligations for maintenance accruing therefrom ceased with the subsequent marriage in August, 1976. The majority cites no authority and none is suggested demonstrating there can be a tacking on or reaching back to the prior circumstances of divorced parties who later remarry, to provide a relevant factual basis for determining the extent and duration of maintenance arising from dissolution of the second marriage. To justify its conclusion the majority suggests that the fact that children were born of the prior marriage is relevant to the issue of child support renders evidence of the parties’ prior status relevant to the current issue of maintenance. This begs the question inasmuch as the continuing duty *318for child support survives the original divorce as well as the interim period when the parties were not married, the subsequent marriage and the present dissolution. Such is not the case with maintenance (alimony) which arises only from the existence of the marriage beginning in 1976 and terminating in 1979. Similarly the majority recites the fact the proceeds from the sale of the parties’ previous Connecticut home was introduced, and concludes this justifies introducing evidence of the “totality of their relationship”. It is true that if these proceeds exist as an asset of the parties, their present value (with that of other assets) is relevant to the question of maintenance. However, the readily apparent nexuses connecting (1) the fact six children were born of the prior marriage to the question of child support and (2) the current value of the parties’ assets to the issue of maintenance, provide no such link between status in a prior marriage and maintenance stemming from a subsequent dissolution. We may not condemn, as the majority has done, the trial court for properly excluding this evidence as to the parties’ circumstances during their first marriage, for such is irrelevant to the issue of maintenance. To the extent it is directed that such evidence be considered on rehearing, I respectfully dissent.