Rahn v. Rahn

• Decision Date: 31 March 1983
• Docket Number: No. 81-473,81-473
• Citation: 123 N.H. 222,459 A.2d 268
• Parties: Jeannette Y. RAHN v. John A. RAHN.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

Page 268

459 A.2d 268

123 N.H. 222

Jeannette Y. RAHN v.John A. RAHN.

No. 81-473.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire.

March 31, 1983.

James J. Fitzpatrick, Portsmouth, and James H. Dineen, of Kittery, Me. (James Fitzpatrick, Portsmouth and James H. Dineen Kittery, Me. on the brief, and James J. Fitzpatrick orally), for plaintiff.

Shute, Engel & Morse P.A., Exeter (Paul R. Pudloski, Exeter, on the brief and orally), for defendant.

DOUGLAS, Justice.

This case involves the distribution of property in a divorce proceeding following a long-term marriage where the major asset of the parties is their home.The Master (Earl J. Dearborn, Esq.) recommended that the home be awarded exclusively to the plaintiff, and the Superior Court(Temple, J.) entered a decree accordingly.We reverse and remand.

The parties married in 1942, and both worked and pooled their earnings in a joint account.The plaintiff, Jeannette Rahn, was fifty-four years old at the time of the divorce while John was sixty-two.About thirty years ago, they purchased a house in Rye for $10,000.It has no mortgage and is presently worth at least five or six times as much.An appraiser estimated the value at $79,000.

The plaintiff has angina and works in a non-teaching job at a Portsmouth school.She earns $123 a week take-home pay after a deduction of $45 a month to repay a loan used to purchase vinyl siding for the house.The defendant, who works for General Electric, has a take-home pay of $237 a week.The parties disagree over who put more time and work into the house.The defendant, who held a second job, and therefore could not personally perform as much maintenance and repair work as the plaintiff, claims that he hired people to do various repairs.The plaintiff, on the other hand, claims that the defendant was not "interested" in the house and refused to work on it.Both seek a share of the equity in the parties' home because it is the major asset of their marriage.

Other personal assets of the parties are jointly owned savings bonds valued at $6,100, 161 shares of jointly owned General Electric stock worth about $8,800, and twenty shares of that same stock owned solely by the defendant and valued at $1,100.They each own cars of comparable net value, and they jointly own furnishings worth about $3,000.The total value of all real and personal assets including the cars is $102,900, of which the house constitutes approximately seventy-eight per cent.The master divided the property by giving the plaintiff the house, her car, the household furnishings, and one-half of the savings bonds.The defendant received about $15,000 worth of assets including his car, but he received no interest in the house.The master made no written findings of fact to support his recommended property division.

After the master's recommendations were approved, the Superior Court(Bean, J.) denied the defendant's motion for rehearing.This appeal followed.

Under RSA 458:19 (Supp.1981), marital property is to be divided not by some magic formula but in a manner deemed "just" based upon the evidence presented.A master is not obliged to divide property equally, but must apportion the marital estate according to the equities of the circumstances.Grandmaison v. Grandmaison, 119 N.H. 268, 271, 401 A.2d 1057, 1059(1979);Azzi v. Azzi, 118 N.H. 653, 656, 392 A.2d 148, 150(1978);seeComer v. Comer, 110 N.H. 505, 507-08, 272 A.2d 586, 587-88(1970).While our cases do not yield an equation of mathematical precision, they do form a pattern by which we can review the reasonable exercise of a master's discretion.Were it otherwise, there would be no guiding legal principles and the appellate court would have abdicated all power of review in the name of "discretion."

A marriage of only one or two years may be considered differently than a long-term marriage of ten, twenty, or thirty years.In a short-term marriage, it is easier to give back property brought to the marriage and still leave the parties in no worse position than they were in prior to it.Where the parties have invested money and effort for years in an asset like a family business or house, however, the result is different.

We found in Hanson v. Hanson, 121 N.H....