Court Opinion

ID: 9568013
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:59:56.764497+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:12.503038
License: Public Domain

EASTAUGH, Justice,
concurring.
Despite my agreement with the result the court reaches, I have reservations about the court’s rationale for permitting the superior court, when it calculates on remand the support reimbursement Crayton is to receive, to treat as income money given to Shannon Riordan by her father.
In permitting the gifts to be taken into account as income, the court focuses on the retrospective nature of the reimbursement calculation. Opinion at 490. Because the calculation is retrospective, the court reasons there is no danger a one-time gift or inheritance would unfairly inflate a future support obligation. Opinion at 490.
No uncertainty is involved when retrospective calculation takes into account a gift previously received, as the court correctly notes. But the same can be said if the calculation of future support is based in part on a recently received one-time gift or inheritance. The problem with that calculation is not uncertainty, but the income inflation that results when the gift or inheritance is treated as income rather than as a capital asset.
I am not convinced that the unreliability of trying to predict future income based in part *491on a gift or an inheritance is the only reason courts normally should decline to treat such receipts as income. I would suggest that most one-time gifts and inheritances should be considered to be capital assets. Such receipts may represent the ability to earn income, an ability that should be taken into account, but the gifts themselves are often treated as capital assets by the donor and the recipient.
The Civil Rule 90.3 commentary draws the appropriate distinction. Rule 90.3(a)(1) defines adjusted annual income to mean “total income from all sources.... ” The rule does not provide any meaningful definition for the term “income.” Commentary III.A lists income sources. The list distinguishes between earnings and the principal assets from which the earnings derive. Commentary III.A closes with the following sentence: “The principal amount of one-time gifts and inheritances should not be considered as income, but interest from the principal amount should be considered as income and the principal amount may be considered as to whether unusual circumstances exist as provided by [Rule] 90.3(e).” I would take this clear assertion at face value: the principal amount of gifts and inheritances is not considered to be “income.” This assertion appears to have been based on a considered choice, because the commentary distinguishes between onetime gifts and inheritances, and other receipts which are equally unlikely to repeat. Thus, it treats as income such one-time receipts as lottery or gambling winnings, prizes, and awards. Alaska R. Civ. P. 90.3 commentary III.A. See Eagley v. Eagley, 849 P.2d 777, 779 (Alaska 1993) (“while this court has not officially adopted or approved the [Rule 90.3] commentary, we have relied on it for guidance in determining adjusted annual income....”).
If the principal amount of gifts and inheritances is not income for purposes of calculating future support payments, conceptually there is no reason why it should be considered income for purposes of calculating payments due in the past, either.
The court reaches the right result in this ease because the evidence supports a finding that Riordan’s father intended the gifts to be the equivalent of income, to be used to support his daughter and the children. Nonetheless, I think the rationale announced by the court on this issue will require elaboration or retrenchment following briefing which squarely addresses this question.