Court Opinion

ID: 9883805
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:20:33.421263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:31.408019
License: Public Domain

HUSPENI, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent on the maintenance issue and would affirm the trial court thereon. I do not agree that the $20,000 designated as maintenance was immediately payable. I believe it was an immediately-determinable amount and a principal sum specified in the decree. However, I do conclude that the trial court was correct in treating this $20,000 as exactly what the parties intended it to be: part of a $40,000 property settlement.
The decree of dissolution is based upon the parties’ stipulation as to all matters now at issue. The trial court determined that the parties intended to equalize their property division. That determination is sound. It is certainly supported by stipulation language quoted by the majority, and by the fact that the property settlement reached prior to the $40,000 provision gave property valued at $250,000 to husband and property worth approximately $200,00 to wife. The language setting forth payment of “$10,000 a year for four years” not only serves to equalize the earlier property division, it is also a specified principal sum, devoid of any contingency (such as death of the payee) which would clearly mark it as a true maintenance award.
The trial court concluded that $20,000 of the $40,000 was designated as maintenance in order to achieve a tax benefit. That may be. However, even though we recognize that the tax benefit might not materialize,1 that fact does not alter the clear purpose of the parties’ agreement.
The intent of the parties in their stipulation was correctly interpreted by the trial court. That intent was to create a property settlement, part of which was to be thinly disguised as a maintenance award. By application of Minn.Stat. § 518.64, subd. 3 (1982), the majority has rushed forth to rescue appellant from the obligations he assumed in the stipulation. Such rescue is unwarranted and makes this court an unwitting participant in effecting appellant’s unfair release from obligations imposed upon him, not by a court order, but by his own agreement. The terms of that agreement neither anticipated nor permitted application of section 518.64, subd. 3.

. Under federal law, maintenance (periodic payment) is deductible by the payor and includable in the income of the payee. However, the statute in effect on October 10, 1984 reads as follows:
(c) Principal sum paid in installments.—
(1) General rule. — For purposes of subsection (a), installment payments discharging a part of an obligation the principal sum of which is, either in terms of money or property, specified in the decree, instrument, or agreement shall not be treated as periodic payments.
(2) Where period for payment is more than 10 years. — If, by the terms of the decree, instrument, or agreement, the principal sum referred to in paragraph (1) is to be paid or may be paid over a period ending more than 10 years from the date of such decree, instrument, or agreement, then (notwithstanding paragraph (1)) the installment payments shall be treated as periodic payments for purposes of subsection (a) * * *.
26 U.S.C. § 71.