Court Opinion

ID: 9547836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:53:02.67149+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:08.436382
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Justice
(dissenting):
I do not agree that there was “no alternative to an in-kind distribution” of the stock of defendant’s companies. It is not at all unusual in cases where valuation is an issue to be determined that the estimates of experts are widely disparate. I think a better approach than the distribution in kind ordered by the trial court would be to remand this case for a determination by the trial judge of the actual value of the corporations. That task is no different, or more difficult, than the same kind of task which must be performed in most tort cases, contract cases, and property eases where an award of damages is made.
Furthermore, as the majority notes, there are compelling reasons to avoid a property distribution based on joint ownership by divorced spouses of a closely held family corporation, especially when other members of the spouses’ families are also stockholders. It certainly is not to the advantage of either of the parties in this case to be placed in a very close economic relationship which has every potential for further contention, friction, and litigation, especially when third parties having nothing to do with the divorce will also necessarily be involved. The economic interests of the parties will invariably be at odds with each other. Wetzel v. Wetzel, 35 Wis.2d 103, 150 N.W.2d 482, 485 (1967), stated the sound principle that such friction ought to be avoided:
The elimination of the source of strife and friction is to be sought and the financial affairs of the divorced parties separated as far as possible. If the parties cannot get along as husband and wife, it is not likely they would get along as partners in business.
See also Frandsen v. Frandsen, 58 Haw. 98, 564 P.2d 1274 (1977).
Furthermore, the solution arrived at by the trial court and affirmed by this Court will necessarily result in the unnecessary diminution of the marital estate because of the inevitability of one party or the other having to pay substantial taxes on the transfer of the stock.
HOWE, J., concurs.