Court Opinion

ID: 9807142
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 19:51:44.994348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:05.461641
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Chief Justice,
concurring specially.
[¶ 25] I concur with the opinion written for the Court by Justice Sandstrom.
[¶ 26] I write separately to emphasize that with regard to the interest on the equalization payment, while there is, as the opinion notes at ¶ 19, broad authority to *239provide for the payment of interest on a lump-sum award made to achieve an equitable distribution of .property, the manner of payment of that award is of concern in determining whether or not the total distribution of property is equitable. See, e.g., Tuff v. Tuff, 383 N.W.2d 421, 424 (N.D.1983) (stating a lump-sum payment over a period of ten years with no interest would need to be discounted in determining whether, at the time of the divorce decree, there was an equitable distribution of property).
[¶ 27] Thus, the amount of interest is a measure of whether or not the property distribution was equitable. While the two percent interest rate on the lump-sum equalization payment is not generous, it is, as the opinion notes, within the range of the evidence and two percent is not unreasonable in today’s low interest market. I therefore agree that in this instance the property distribution was equitable.
[¶ 28] GERALD W. VANDE WALLE, C.J.