Donndelinger v. Donndelinger, 14576
| Decision Date | 29 October 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 14576,14576 |
| Citation | 690 P.2d 366,107 Idaho 431 |
| Parties | Thomas M. DONNDELINGER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Marcia N. DONNDELINGER, Defendant-Respondent. |
| Court | Idaho Court of Appeals |
Roger L. Williams, and Steven Adamson and Henry F. McQuade (argued) (Adamson, Young & McQuade), Nampa, for plaintiff-appellant.
Stanley W. Welsh (Clemons, Cosho & Humphrey, P.A.), Boise, for defendant-respondent.
This appeal focuses upon the division of community property in a divorce. The trial judge held that the division should be substantially equal. Neither party has challenged that determination, but the husband has appealed because he believes the actual result under the final decree was substantially unequal.
The appeal embraces two principal issues: (a) In order to achieve equality, should the judge have made specific findings concerning the value of community property and the amount of community debt? (b) Should the judge have taken into account the husband's payment of certain community obligations, pursuant to an interim court order, when dividing the community estate in the final decree? Because we answer both questions in the affirmative, the divorce decree is vacated in part and the case is remanded. Section I of our opinion depicts the procedural and factual context in which these issues have arisen. Section II examines each issue substantively and disposes of subsidiary questions.
After fifteen years of married life, Thomas and Marcia Donndelinger separated and sued for divorce. Both agreed that the marriage should be dissolved for irreconcilable differences, but they were unable to agree upon the division of community property. Discovery proceedings ensued. In the meantime, a magistrate ordered the husband to provide temporary child and spousal support and to "pay the debts of the parties accumulated to the date of this Order." When the case later came to trial, the husband testified that he had paid some "$42,000 in bills" and that community debts of approximately $22,000 remained. Unfortunately, the husband's testimony did not fully distinguish between debts existing when the interim order was entered and debts later incurred.
The value of the community property also became a murky subject. Although the real property presented no complexities--the parties having sold their land and each having received about $18,000 in proceeds--the personal property was fraught with controversy. Pursuant to a pretrial order, both parties filed lists identifying personal property in the possession or control of each spouse and placing a value on each item. These lists differed materially as to values. At trial the spouses gave testimony controverting each other's figures and the wife called an expert witness whose appraisal contained yet another set of figures. Faced with these nettlesome conflicts, the magistrate issued a decree of divorce, later to be followed by an amended decree. In the initial decree, the magistrate made no findings on the value of particular items of property nor on the amounts of specific debts. Rather, he simply awarded the husband certain property listed in a Schedule A and placed a total value of approximately $55,000 upon it. This schedule omitted the husband's $18,000 from sale of the real property, it being undisputed that the money had been spent. The wife was awarded certain property listed in a Schedule B, together with a bank account and a car which she had acquired with her $18,000 share of the real estate proceeds. The court found the wife's total award to have an aggregate value of approximately $40,000. Finally, the husband was directed to pay all outstanding community debts listed in a Schedule C. The court, without determining the amount of each debt, stated that they totalled $30,000, despite the husband's testimony that they amounted to $22,000.
On its face, this initial decree might have been viewed either as favorable to the wife or as providing a roughly equal division of the community property. If the husband's property in Schedule A were offset by the debts in Schedule C, his net distribution would have been approximately $25,000. Had his expended share of real estate proceeds been included in the calculation, his net distribution would have been $43,000. In either event, the wife's distribution was simply $40,000--the value ascribed to Schedule B and to the cash and car acquired from her share of the real estate proceeds.
However, the wife took a different view. Believing that the value placed upon her Schedule B property had been too high, and that the amount of unpaid community debts imposed upon the husband had been overestimated, she appealed. She noted that Schedules A, B and C closely resembled the husband's pretrial lists, with value figures removed. The wife further noted that these lists, although filed with the court, had not been admitted into evidence as exhibits at trial. Therefore, she argued, the decree was unsupported by the evidence. On appeal, a district judge agreed. He held that the magistrate's findings had not been based upon "competent" evidence and the case was remanded to the magistrate for further proceedings.
Upon remand, the magistrate conducted another hearing. Counsel stipulated in open court that the case need not be retried. Both sides adopted the existing record and adduced no new evidence. However, the husband's counsel asked the magistrate to treat as part of the evidence the husband's lists from which Schedules A, B and C had been derived. The wife's attorney objected, claiming there had been no opportunity to cross-examine on items contained in those lists. The magistrate upheld the objection.
After the hearing the magistrate issued an amended decree. This decree made no change in the property awarded to each spouse. It reincorporated Schedules A and B from the former decree and simply deleted any finding as to total values of property awarded. With respect to debts, the amended decree abolished schedule C, which had listed several obligations found to total $30,000. Instead, the amended decree directed the husband to pay a single community debt of $3,400. The amended decree also directed the husband to make an "equalizing payment" to the wife in the sum of $13,300. The source of this figure was not disclosed in the amended decree. However, the parties have surmised that the magistrate--having decided not to alter the property division and having found the community debts to be $3,400 rather than $30,000--determined that the husband was $26,600 better off under the amended decree than under the initial decree and that half of this amount should be remitted to the wife.
It then became the husband's turn to appeal. He launched two attacks upon the amended decree. First, he contended that neither the magistrate's findings nor the underlying evidence showed that the community estate had been divided equally. Secondly, he urged that the magistrate should have taken into account the community debts he had paid before trial, pursuant to the interim order.
In this second appeal, the district judge--a judge different from the one who heard the first appeal--affirmed the amended decree. He held that even if the community estate had been divided unequally, the law did not require equality. He further held that the magistrate had not abused his discretionary power to make an "equitable" division. Finally, the district judge rejected the husband's contention that the magistrate had erred by failing to take account of earlier debt payments. This contention was rejected, not on its merits, but upon a theory that the husband would not be heard to complain of such error because he had objected during trial to certain questions concerning his use of earnings while the parties were separated. The husband again appealed, bringing the case before us.
A threshold task in any appeal is to identify, for each issue presented, the appropriate standard of appellate review. These standards are not always stated explicitly in arguments of counsel or in appellate opinions, but they remain the foundation of a proper analysis. As the following discussion reveals, the standards depend upon whether the issue presented is one of law, of fact, or of discretion.
The first issue--whether the trial judge, in order to achieve equality, should have made specific findings on the value of community property and the amount of community debt--presents a hybrid set of questions encompassing law, fact and discretion. As we shall see, whether a magistrate should divide the community estate equally or in another equitable fashion is a question of discretion, guided by statutory and case law. It is a question of fact whether a magistrate, having decided to divide the estate equally, actually has achieved such equality. Finally, it is a question of law whether the magistrate, having decided to divide the estate equally, is required to establish the equality of the division by making particular findings concerning the value of property and amount of debt. We will address these questions in turn.
Since 1980, I.C. § 32-712 has directed the trial judge in a divorce case to make a "substantially equal division" of the community estate "[u]nless there are compelling reasons otherwise." Prior to 1980, the statute merely required any division to be "just." The pre-1980 statute reposed in the trial court broad discretion to divide property and debts. Hammond v. Hammond, 92 Idaho 623, 448 P.2d 237 (1968). However, the exercise of such discretion had been tempered by our Supreme Court's observation, in Guy v. Guy, 98 Idaho 205, 209, 560 P.2d 876, 880 (1977), that "[i]n the ordinary and normal situation and in the absence of factors which in the discretion of the trial court require otherwise, we would expect community property assets to be divided equally between the parties."
In this case, the initial decree of divorce was entered in 1979. Consequently,...
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