Court Opinion

ID: 9724656
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:06:57.354832+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:03.795467
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring specially.
I agree that under the particular facts of this case the failure to award any of the property inherited by Charles to Mary resulted in an inequitable distribution of the property. If the other marital assets were of greater value and if Mary had received property which provided her with a greater means by which to maintain herself and her children, I might view this matter differently. As Justice Meschke notes in the majority opinion, the facts of this case distinguish it from VanRosendale v. VanRosendale, 342 N.W.2d 209 (N.D.1983), and similar cases.
When we have determined that the distribution made by a trial court is inequitable, I have favored a remand to the trial court for the purpose of reaching an equitable distribution as opposed to a distribution of the marital assets by this court. See my dissent in Sanford v. Sanford, 301 N.W.2d *557118, 129 (N.D.1980). In that dissent, however, I recognized that there may be some instances in which, because there is little property to distribute and only one equitable method of distribution, a distribution by this court is justified. There is certainly little property to distribute here other than the proceeds of the sale of the farm land and the interest in minerals. Because we are not a trial court and have no direct method of learning the pitfalls which are created by a distribution of property at this level, I am uncomfortable with our distribution of the property. This case, however, appears to me to be one of the instances referred to in my dissent in Sanford which justifies that action and I therefore concur in the result reached by the majority opinion.