Simmons v. Simmons, 15658

• Citation: 708 A.2d 949,244 Conn. 158
• Decision Date: 24 March 1998
• Docket Number: No. 15658,15658
• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut
• Parties: Duncan R. SIMMONS v. Aura R. SIMMONS.

Page 949

708 A.2d 949

244 Conn. 158

Duncan R. SIMMONS v. Aura R. SIMMONS.

No. 15658.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 10, 1997.

Decided March 24, 1998.

Frank J. Kolb, East Haven, with whom were David E. Crow, Glastonbury and, on the brief, Louis A. Crisci, Jr., East Haven, for appellant (defendant).

Barbara J. Radlauer, Pound Ridge, NY, with whom was Ralph P. Dupont, New London, for appellee (plaintiff).

Louis I. Parley and S. Deborah Eldrich, New Haven, filed a brief for the Connecticut Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers as amicus curiae.

Before CALLAHAN, C.J., and BERDON, NORCOTT, KATZ and McDONALD, JJ.

CALLAHAN, Chief Justice.

The defendant, Aura R. Simmons, appeals from the judgment of the trial court in an action for dissolution of her marriage to the plaintiff, Duncan R. Simmons. She raises three issues: (1) whether the trial court properly concluded that a medical degree is not property subject to equitable distribution pursuant to General Statutes § 46b-81 ¹ upon dissolution of the marriage; (2) whether, if it is assumed that the medical degree is not property, the trial court abused its discretion in its distribution of the remaining marital property and in denying alimony to the defendant; and (3) whether a contract existed between the parties with regard to the medical degree, which affords the defendant a contractual remedy. We affirm the judgment of the trial court on the first issue and reverse its judgment, in part, on the second issue. We decline to address the third issue.

The trial court made the following findings of fact. The plaintiff and the defendant were married on September 23, 1983, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. At the time of their marriage, the plaintiff was twenty-three years of age and was a sergeant in the United States Army. The defendant was forty-three years of age and was working as a bartender. There are no children of the marriage. The defendant, however, had six children of her own prior to her marriage to the plaintiff.

During the course of the marriage, both the plaintiff and the defendant pursued their individual educational goals. The defendant obtained two associates degrees, one as a surgical technician and one in nursing, culminating in her becoming a registered nurse in 1991. The plaintiff received his undergraduate degree in 1990 and entered medical school. He completed medical school in 1994 and entered a surgical residency program at St. Raphael's Hospital in New Haven, causing the family to relocate to Connecticut from North Carolina. The defendant and the plaintiff both paid their own educational expenses and both were employed and jointly supporting the family unit until the plaintiff entered medical school, when he was prohibited from maintaining outside employment. The plaintiff received loans and grants to pay for medical school and to defray some of the household expenses. The defendant worked and supported the family while the plaintiff attended medical school. She provided financial and emotional support as well as her services as a homemaker. She did not, however, make any direct financial contribution toward the cost of the plaintiff's medical school education.

In the third year of his five year surgical residency, the plaintiff filed an action for dissolution of marriage. At trial, the defendant argued that the plaintiff's medical degree was property subject to equitable distribution pursuant to § 46b-81 upon dissolution of the marriage. She presented an expert witness, Steven Shapiro, an economist, who testified regarding the present value of the plaintiff's medical degree. Shapiro testified that the plaintiff's future earning potential, reduced to present value, was approximately $3.4 million as a plastic surgeon and $2.8 million as a general surgeon. He concluded that the average of the two, $3.1 million, represents the appropriate value to be assigned to the plaintiff's medical degree. ² The defendant claimed that the degree's present value should be equitably distributed between the parties and demanded in excess of $1.5 million as a property settlement. In its memorandum of decision analyzing the state of the law of this and other jurisdictions, the trial court concluded that the plaintiff's medical degree was not property subject to equitable distribution pursuant to § 46b-81. The court then issued an order dissolving the marriage, denying alimony to both parties and ordering distribution of the parties' debts and assets. The defendant appealed from the judgment of the trial court to the Appellate Court, and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to Practice Book § 4023 and General Statutes § 51-199(c).

I

The first issue raised by the defendant is whether the plaintiff's medical degree is property subject to equitable distribution pursuant to § 46b-81 upon dissolution of the marriage. This is a question of first impression for Connecticut. It is not, however, a new question nationwide. At least thirty-five states have addressed the issue and substantial ink has been expended by academicians and practitioners on this subject. It has been labeled with a number of appellations, the most common of which is the "working spouse/student spouse syndrome," apparently so called because it represents an unfortunate circumstance that too often arises in family courts. In its most basic form, it is typified by one spouse who works to provide primary support for the family unit while the other spouse obtains an education, meanwhile earning either nothing or substantially less than he or she otherwise might have earned. Typically, it is also characterized by a relatively short marriage ³ and a working spouse who has made significant sacrifices, for example, forgoing or delaying educational or childrearing opportunities and the current enjoyment of income that could have been produced by the student spouse. The expectation that the future benefit of increased earning capacity would be the reward shared by both is dashed when the marriage disintegrates and one of the parties files an action for dissolution before the anticipated benefits are realized. The critical problem in these situations is that the couple usually has few, if any, assets to be distributed at the time of the dissolution of the marriage. The degree, with its potential for increased earning power, is, therefore, the only thing of real economic value to the parties. See, e.g., Haugan v. Haugan, 117 Wis.2d 200, 206-207, 343 N.W.2d 796 (1984), and cases cited there; B. Herring, "Divisibility of Advanced Degrees in Equitable Distribution States," 19 J. Marshall L.Rev. 1, 1-2 (1985).

The defendant argues that she fits within this paradigm and is entitled to share in the benefits of the plaintiff's medical degree by way of a distribution pursuant to § 46b-81 conferring on her an equitable portion of the value of the plaintiff's medical degree. ⁴ In support of this argument, the defendant asserts that § 46b-81 adopts an " 'all property,' equitable distribution scheme"; Krafick v. Krafick, 234 Conn. 783, 792, 663 A.2d 365 (1995); pursuant to which this court has given an expansive definition of property that necessarily includes an advanced degree obtained during the marriage. ⁵ The crux of the defendant's argument rests upon selected language from our opinion in Krafick. The plaintiff counters that a medical degree cannot be distributed as property because it has no inherent value independent of the holder and does not fit within the statutory definition of property. We conclude that the plaintiff's medical degree is not property subject to distribution pursuant to § 46b-81.

We are supported in this conclusion by what we deem to be the intent of the legislature, the overwhelming weight of authority in other jurisdictions that have addressed this issue; see footnote 6 of this opinion; and sound public policy considerations. We begin our analysis with the relevant statute, § 46b-81. "We approach this question according to well established principles of statutory construction designed to further our fundamental objective of ascertaining and giving effect to the apparent intent of the legislature.... In seeking to discern that intent, we look to the words of the statute itself, to the legislative history and circumstances surrounding its enactment, to the legislative policy it was designed to implement, and to its relationship to existing legislation and common law principles governing the same general subject matter...." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Krafick v. Krafick, supra, 234 Conn. at 793-94, 663 A.2d 365.

In Krafick, we were called upon to determine whether the term property in § 46b-81, which is not defined by the statute or clarified by its legislative history, was broad enough to include vested, though unmatured, pension rights. To that end, we concluded that the legislature intended to adopt the commonly accepted legal definition of property as set forth in Black's Law Dictionary (6th Ed.1990) p. 1095, which "defines 'property' as the term 'commonly used to denote everything which is the subject of ownership, corporeal or incorporeal, tangible or intangible, visible or invisible, real or personal; everything that has an exchangeable value or which goes to make up wealth or estate. It extends to every species of valuable right and interest, and includes real and personal property, easements, franchises, and incorporeal hereditament.' " Krafick v. Krafick, supra, 234 Conn. at 794, 663 A.2d 365. By adopting that definition, we acknowledged that the legislature intended the term to be broad in scope. Id., at 793-94, 663 A.2d 365. While we do not retreat from the definition of property espoused in Krafick, we also recognize that it is not without limits. We conclude that the plaintiff's medical degree falls outside those limits.

Whether the interest of a party to a dissolution is subject to...