Court Opinion

ID: 9670779
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:26:13.146669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:06.489758
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring specially.
I am not left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made. However, there is woefully little evidence upon which the trial court could have based its decision. If we continue to label an award of spousal support as a finding of fact by itself, which can be set aside only when it is clearly erroneous, we may encourage awards of spousal support with no evidence to support the award. In Clark v. Clark, 331 N.W.2d 277, 279 (N.D.1983), Justice Sand, concurring specially, wrote that the “statement that such dispositions are treated as a finding of fact is partially correct if it is understood that the facts considered by the trial court leading up to the distribution of the property are a finding of fact, but the actual distribution of property or disposition is not a finding of fact.” I concurred in Justice Sand’s opinion in Clark. I believe the rationale quoted above which applies to findings concerning the distribution of property in a divorce action is equally applicable to an award of spousal support in a divorce action.
SAND, J., concurs.