Koegel v. Koegel

• Decision Date: 24 February 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-865,81-865
• Citation: 432 N.E.2d 206,69 Ohio St.2d 355,23 O.O.3d 320
• Parties: , 23 O.O.3d 320 KOEGEL, Appellant, v. KOEGEL, Appellee.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 355

69 Ohio St.2d 355

432 N.E.2d 206, 23 O.O.3d 320

KOEGEL, Appellant, v. KOEGEL, Appellee.

No. 81-865.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Feb. 24, 1982.

Syllabus by the Court

Whether to award interest upon obligations arising out of the division of marital property is within the discretion of the trial court. (Cherry v. Cherry, 66 Ohio St.2d 348, approved and followed.)

Appellant, Lloyd Koegel, filed an action for divorce against appellee, his wife, Frances Koegel, on September 8, 1978. The parties were granted a divorce on October 27, 1980 on the ground that they had lived separate and apart for two years.

Appellant is a psychologist for the Wadsworth Board of Education and appellee is employed as a branch manager for a local bank. At the time of the divorce, the children of the parties were emancipated.

In its judgment order, the trial court made the following division of property. The appellee was awarded all household goods and furnishings, except that appellant was allowed to retain his personal belongings. Each party was awarded his respective pensions, automobiles, checking and savings accounts, and stocks. The marital residence jointly owned by the parties and subject to a mortgage was awarded to the appellee.

Central to this appeal is the court's division of the parties' jointly owned residence. The court awarded the residence, with the responsibility of assuming the outstanding mortgage upon it, to appellee. In return, appellee was to execute a note, secured by a mortgage upon the residence, for $9,200 in favor of appellant. The note became due and payable in five years. ¹

Appellant specifically requested the court to affix interest to the appellee's note at a fixed rate or a rate equal to the cost of living index. This request was denied.

Appellant perfected an appeal in the Court of Appeals for Summit County. There, appellant argued that the trial court committed error by refusing to affix interest to the note. The Court of Appeals held that trial courts are invested with broad discretion in matters concerning the division of marital property. Therefore, the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court.

However, finding its decision in conflict with two decisions of the Fifth District Court of Appeals, in Bieber v. Bieber (Fairfield County, February 22, 1978), C.A.No. 29-CA-78, unreported, and Pugh v. Pugh (Richland County, December 27, 1979), C.A. No. 1823, unreported, the Court of Appeals certified the record of the case to this court for review and final determination.

Walter J. Vogel, Akron, for appellant.

C. Donald Morris, Akron, for appellee.

PATTON, Justice.

The narrow issue to be determined by this appeal is whether a trial court abuses its discretion in effecting a division of marital property where a part of such division includes a deferred monetary obligation which does not bear interest.

Appellant maintains that a delayed payment on a monetary obligation arising out of a division of marital property must always bear interest or such a division is inequitable as a matter of law and in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Section 16, Article I of the Ohio Constitution.

In Bieber v. Bieber and Pugh v. Pugh, supra, the court rules that delayed payments in the division of marital property must bear interest. The appellant urges this court to adopt a per se rule like that of Bieber. ² We specifically rejected such a rule in Cherry v. Cherry (1981), 66 Ohio St.2d 348, 421 N.E.2d 1293.

The issue presented here requires this court to examine its recent decision in Cherry. In Cherry, we analyzed the "partnership" language found in our decision in Wolfe v. Wolfe (1976), 46 Ohio St.2d 399, 413, 350 N.E.2d 413, which stated that, in dividing property upon the dissolution of a marriage, "the court must approach the proceeding much like a suit in partition or an action to dissolve, windup, and distribute the assets and liabilities of a partnership." We held that Wolfe did not mandate an equal property division, and that the mere fact that a property division is unequal, does not, standing alone, amount to an abuse of discretion. Cherry, at 353, 421 N.E.2d 1293.

In so holding, we emphasized the long-established principle of leaving broad discretion in the trial court to determine an equitable property division. The different facts and circumstances which each divorce case presents to a trial court requires that a trial judge be given wide latitude in dividing property between the parties. Because each divorce case is different, we concluded in Cherry that equitable need not mean equal.

A property award without interest may sometimes be inequitable, but it is not always so. "This is why it is ill-advised and impossible for any court to set down a flat rule concerning property division upon divorce." Id. at 355.

We indicated in Cherry that, in making an award of alimony, a trial court's discretion is subject to the 11-factor guide in R.C. 3105.18. Thus, a trial court's discretion is not unlimited, and a...