Court Opinion

ID: 9569852
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:18:02.721823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:09.948923
License: Public Domain

DURHAM, Justice
dissenting:
The majority opinion holds that professional degrees are not marital property and rejects the principle of equitable restitution fashioned by the court of appeals, on the theory that currently recognized rights to alimony, child support, and property distribution are sufficient to solve the complex problems posed by cases like this. I disagree and would argue that if we are going to prohibit the use of the principles relied on by the court of appeals, then we must fashion a new and more flexible theory of alimony.
First, there is insufficient tangible property to compensate the spouse who has been “investing” time, labor, earnings, and postponed improvements in standard of living for the long-term benefit of the marital community when the marriage ends before the investment has “paid off.” Second, child support protects the rights of the children of divorcing spouses to share in present and future benefits of earning capacity; it may not legitimately be used to compensate a former spouse for the value of what she has “invested” without return (or lost) as a result of the termination of the marriage. Finally, alimony as currently understood in our law is theoretically inadequate to perform the compensation function that the court of appeals identified as necessary in this case. One need only examine the alimony decisions cited by the majority opinion to ascertain that alimony in this state has depended on (1) the financial conditions and needs of the recipient spouse, (2) the ability of the recipient spouse to produce sufficient income for self-support, and (3) the ability of the payor spouse to provide support. See, e.g., Jones v. Jones, 700 P.2d 1072, 1075 (Utah 1985). To those fundamental principles, we have added the consideration that “[a]n alimony award should, in as far as possible, equalize the parties’ respective standards of living and maintain them at a level as close as possible to the standard of living enjoyed during the marriage." Higley v. Higley, 676 P.2d 379, 381 (Utah 1983) (emphasis added).
I submit that none of the foregoing principles address the specific problem posed by termination of a marriage in which one or both spouses have sacrificed in tangible and intangible ways, foregoing income, accumulation of property, an enhanced standard of living, and the educational and career-development opportunities of one so that the other might acquire a valuable and prestigious professional degree. When the marriage ends before the marital community has enjoyed the benefits expected from that sacrifice, the nonholder of the degree suffers a very real loss. Whether we adopt a doctrine of “equitable restitution” or rethink the theory and function of alimony, we must address the requirements of equity and justice to compensate in some *545fashion for that loss. As David S. Dolow-itz recently noted in the Utah Bar Journal, equitable restitution is a form of alimony “paid to produce an equitable balancing of property and income that cannot be otherwise effected” by the traditional forms of support alimony and rehabilitative alimony. Dolowitz, The Impact of Tax Laws on Divorce, Utah B.J., at 8, 9 (August/September 1991) (emphasis added).
Other commentators have recently devoted a great deal of scholarly attention to the problems of compensating spouses for losses they suffer because of decisions to further the marital enterprise by enhancing the education or career of one spouse at cost to both.1 In a recent article discussing the question Should “The Theory of Alimony” Include Nonfinancial Losses and Motivations?, 1991 B.Y.U.L.Rev. 259, law professor Ira Ellman (author of The Theory of Alimony, 77 Calif.L.Rev. 1 (1989)) observes:
[T]he purpose of alimony under “The Theory” is to eliminate the financial disincentives for marital sharing behavior that would be present in the absence of a remedy, rather than to provide positive incentives.... The principle is actually rather modest in scope. The policy upon which it is based would seem, at least at first, to be broadly acceptable: spouses otherwise inclined to conduct themselves during the marriage in a manner that benefits the marital community ought not be discouraged from acting that way for fear that, if the marriage were to dissolve, they would be left with all of the financial loss arising from their decision. This is especially true when, for example, the wife has a loss while her husband has no loss, or even reaps a gain (as would be the case where the wife gives up her employment to advance her husband’s).
B.Y.U.L.Rev. at 265.
This approach is connected to an assessment of loss, not one of need, as has traditionally been the case in the theory of alimony. It requires the courts to discover or create means by which a spouse may recover after divorce the value of what he or she lost by reason of investment in the marital enterprise, where that investment has resulted in a net gain to the other spouse.
Once the spouses’ gain or loss from the marriage has been measured, they can be compared against one another to determine if one spouse has a loss that should be reallocated to the other. Clearly all losses cannot be compensable, for the simple reason that the claim is against the other spouse, and both spouses may have suffered a loss from their marriage. A loss is compensable, in whole or part, only if the other spouse’s loss is smaller, or if the other spouse has achieved a gain.
Id. at 271. Professor Ellman goes on to describe this as a “reliance measure” of loss, as opposed to the traditional contract damage measure of expectation, and explains its justification at some length. He also suggests several important limitations on his theory of alimony: for example, (1) only residual post-marriage losses are com-pensable, not .inequities in the exchange during marriage; (2) only financial losses are compensable; and (3) only losses arising from marital “sharing behavior” are compensable.
I do not propose that we adopt Professor Ellman’s theory wholesale; I only cite it as one example of a thoughtful effort to solve the problems posed by the common circumstances illustrated in this case. My criticism of the majority opinion is that it makes no effort to guide the trial courts in fashioning a realistic remedy for what is a realistic loss. It rejects the effort of the court of appeals to do precisely that and offers no alternative. The legal status quo is unacceptable, in my view, and I hope that the majority will be willing in the future to make good on its representation that the concept of alimony (or property distribution when there is any property) can be accommodated to the need for equi*546ty. Unless and until that happens, any woman (or man, for that matter) who sacrifices her own education, earning capacity, or career development so that a spouse may advance and the marriage may prosper as a joint venture will inevitably suffer the full cost of that decision at divorce, while the advantaged spouse will continue to walk away from the marriage with all of the major financial gain. That is unfair, and in this area at least, the responsibility of the law is to seek fairness.

. See Batts, Remedy Refocus: In Search of Equity in “Enhanced Spouse/Other Spouse"Divorces, 63 N.Y.U. L.Rev. 751 (1988); Shelburn & Chas-tain, Career Assets and the Equitable Apportionment of Marital Property, 38 S.C. L.Rev. 755 (1987).