Court Opinion

ID: 9669511
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:57:52.151321+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:57.536680
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in part; dissenting in part).
This Court has opened up the equitable package decided by the trial court.
We have decided what is now “prudent” and thus order the husband to pay the wife $55,000.00 in lieu of an award in the partnership. I can see that there are authorities to support this proposition. I would, in all probability, join the majority opinion totally if the majority would then ask the trial court to consider the rehabilitative alimony award.
As it now stands, under Krage v. Krage, 329 N.W.2d 878 (S.D.1983), the trial court can no longer consider the rehabilitative alimony award together with the property award. That is the teaching and the holding of Krage: The two must be considered together. We are tying the trial judge’s hands behind his back as we now send this case back to the trial court. It could very well be that if the trial court is mandated (such as we have effectuated here) to now order that the wife get $55,000.00, and installments over a period of years, that the trial court would not desire, in equity, to award the wife rehabilitative alimony. Again, the trial court should be given an opportunity to rethink its position on the rehabilitative alimony so that the property award and the rehabilitative alimony can be considered “together.” Krage, at 879; see also, Wallahan v. Wallahan, 284 N.W.2d 21 (S.D.1979); and Lien v. Lien, 278 *527N.W.2d 436 (S.D.1979). I agree that the rehabilitative alimony award was not inadequate when looking at the trial court’s mind-set at the time of the trial court’s decision. However, inasmuch as this Court has seen fit to open up the property award package, it should give the trial court a chance to consider if Sheryl Vander Pol should receive any rehabilitative alimony. We have forsaken the above holdings. As the reader peruses the majority opinion, let me emphasize that this lady has a profitable business underway in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has good health and an established ability to produce income. It is a source of economic independence. If she is independent, why must the courts make her dependent upon her husband?
It is axiomatic that even-handed justice be applied for both women and men. It is oxymoronic to be independently dependent. I concur with that part of the decision to which I have not dissented.