Court Opinion

ID: 9857907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:06:56.187883+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:58:49.922114
License: Public Domain

*400HARRIS, Justice
(dissenting).
Although I do so with great respect I vehemently protest the harsh manner in which the majority treats this appellee. I dissent because the majority sends out three signals which are clear, startling and absolutely wrong.
I. It is true that we have paid the specified respect to a de novo review standard in family law cases. See Iowa Code section 242.4 (1987). So doing, we have heretofore accorded more than passing deference to trial court findings, especially in matters of property division, awards, and allowances. Yansky v. Yansky, 172 N.W.2d 114, 117 (Iowa 1969) (“trial court has considerable discretion”).
This deference was grounded in wise public policy. These determinations are more apt to be just when the objective facts are squared with the judge’s subjective impressions, gained from close personal observations. One who personally observes holds a clear advantage over us who learn the case from a cold record. The first-hand observer can translate that advantage into a more just disposition. It is not in the public interest for appellate courts to strain to seek out fine-tune adjustments in these matters.
More litigants are harmed than helped when we fail to give real weight to trial court findings. This is because litigants will feel we have been too enthusiastic in inviting them to seek review. They will do so because of our demonstrated proclivities to intermeddle unduly in matters which at the bottom are judgment calls. The total cost to the parties — and the public — of this increased appellate activity is appalling. Any net gain in just results is highly conjectural, as is strikingly illustrated by the present case. Substantially more benefit would result to all litigants if we were hesitant to meddle with speculative judgment calls of this nature.
II. It seems that Joan was guilty of a tragic blunder some years ago when she undertook ten years of grueling work in a packing plant. It was not work which she enjoyed. Both she and Larry agreed that her employment would last only for ten years, the point at which her modest retirement benefits became vested. Those benefits, in an unspecified amount, will not be received until some future date.
When she left her job at the packing plant, as planned and with Larry’s approval,1 she lost all seniority rights and gave up a job which paid $8.85 per hour. If she returned there, it would be for $5.00 to $6.00 per hour.
In determining Joan’s earning capacity the majority, disagreeing with the trial court, points to Joan’s ten-year effort at the packing plant and, in economic effect, converts it to a life sentence. Under the circumstances this is inordinately unfair. Joan should no more be committed to work at a packing plant than would any person her age who had never previously done so. The holding will almost certainly precipitate a host of claims that alimony should be fixed on the basis of what a spouse, Joan’s age, could earn at a packing plant, or at the most grueling work a former spouse might suggest.
There is every indication that Joan’s earnings at the packing plant were used, as I assume Larry’s earnings at the time were, for family expenses. The practical effect of the majority holding is starkly unjust. Joan’s only incentive for working at the plant for ten years was to gain retirement benefits. But the majority transfers any advantage from those benefits from Joan to Larry by reducing his alimony obligations at once by $200. It seems almost certain that the amount of reduction in alimony over the years will greatly exceed the total amount of retirement benefits to be realized.
The lesson of the majority holding is crystal clear. ■ A person should hesitate long before making the sort of ten-year sacrifice Joan undertook. Even though the effort is undertaken unselfishly and with a *401clear agreement about its limits, a person making the effort will be drawn into a permanent obligation.
III. Finally, I dissent because the trial court’s modest award of $350 per month was just and fair and the majority’s award of a paltry $150 a month is plainly not. The parties were married 26 years. Both worked hard to defray family expenses. Larry’s earning capacity greatly exceeds Joan's. The majority holds that the trial court was wrong in fixing at $350 per month alimony to be paid by a person earning $20,000 annually. It dismisses Joan at her age after all her efforts with $150 per month. This is plain, dead wrong.
NEUMAN, SNELL and ANDREASEN, JJ., join this dissent.

. Larry himself testified that the work at the plant was too hard for Joan and, because of that and pay cuts under the union contract, Joan worked only until the ten years were up. He suggested she quit and go to work for him.