Court Opinion

ID: 9762028
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:08:06.784859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:29.247496
License: Public Domain

CARL R. GAERTNER, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which places this court’s stamp of approval upon the shifting of a spouse’s personal obligation to pay maintenance to a corporation controlled by that spouse. The trial court’s order, after requiring wife to pay husband temporary maintenance of $2,500 per month, states: “however, if petitioner [wife] makes available to respondent [husband] a job through one of the family companies that pays a gross salary of at least two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500) per month, then petitioner shall have satisfied the financial obligation of this order.”
I recognize the apparent purpose of this provision is to eliminate the need for husband to draw upon unemployment compensation for subsistence. Commendable as this purpose may be, I believe the ramifications of such a provision are so potentially violative of public policy considerations that we should not permit it to stand.
First of all, the shifting of the personal responsibility of wife to a corporation has an inevitable impact upon the financial status of the corporation and may constitute the taking of property from corporate shareholders or officers and employees whose compensation is tied to profits without due process of law. Furthermore, satisfaction of a personal obligation from corporate assets has major tax ramifications. Moreover, these ramifications as well as the costs and benefits of fringe benefits associated with employment serve to distort the validity of the financial statements of the parties upon which the trial court relied. Virtually forcing one spouse to accept whatever form of employment may be tendered by the other raises a specter of Thirteenth Amendment considerations.
I am mindful of the fact that husband suggested a form of employment alternative in his proposed order and that he does not directly attack this provision here. Nevertheless, I do not believe public policy considerations can be dispatched by waiver or the agreement of individuals. I am also cognizant of the absence of objection to the employment provisions by members of wife’s family and others who may have financial interest in the corporations. However, the possibility of precedential value being accorded our decision does not permit the luxury of overlooking public policy considerations. *160Therefore, I dissent from the implicit, approval of the employment alternative in the order of the trial court.
In reconsidering the award of temporary child support, the trial court should recognize that the income attributed to husband, $3,258.00 per month, equals the total of the $2,500.00 per month salary for the job he is being forced to accept plus his unemployment compensation of $175.00 per week. He cannot receive both.
I concur in all other aspects of the majority opinion.