Weisberg v. Weisberg (Ex parte Weisberg)
Decision Date | 10 January 2020 |
Docket Number | 1180487 |
Citation | 298 So.3d 1076 (Mem) |
Parties | EX PARTE Scott Ross WEISBERG (In re: Scott Ross Weisberg v. Sari Tamers Weisberg) |
Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Randall W. Nichols and Richard A. Bearden of Massey, Stotser & Nichols PC, Birmingham, for petitioner.
Jacquelyn H. Wesson of Wesson & Wesson, LLC, Warrior, for respondent.
WRIT QUASHED. NO OPINION.
Scott Ross Weisberg ("the former husband") petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari after the Court of Civil Appeals affirmed, without an opinion, a judgment entered by the Jefferson Circuit Court divorcing the former husband from Sari Tamers Weisberg ("the former wife"). Weisberg v. Weisberg (No. 2160689, Jan. 11, 2019), 292 So. 3d 331 (Ala. Civ. App. 2019) (table). We granted the former husband's petition to consider the trial court's award to the former wife of one-half of disability-insurance benefits the former husband may collect in the future. The Court now quashes the writ. I respectfully dissent from the Court's decision to quash the writ.
During the marriage, the former husband, a medical doctor, acquired disability-insurance policies, the premiums for which were paid with marital funds. In 2013, the former husband was participating in the Boston Marathon when two bombs were detonated near the finish line. As a result of the bombing, the former husband suffers from multiple medical conditions that have affected his ability to practice medicine.
In December 2014, the former husband filed a complaint seeking a divorce from the former wife. The former husband testified during the divorce proceedings that he had submitted claims for disability benefits under his disability policies but that his insurers had not paid the claims. He also testified that he had sued the insurers in an effort to obtain disability benefits and that his action against the insurers was pending at the time of the divorce trial.
The trial court entered a judgment divorcing the parties, ordering joint legal custody of the parties' minor children, ordering the former husband to pay child support, and dividing the parties' property. The judgment did not award alimony, but expressly reserved that issue for future consideration. After the parties filed postjudgment motions, the trial court entered an amended judgment containing the following provision regarding the former husband's disability claims:
The former husband urges this Court to adopt the "analytic approach" in considering whether disability-insurance benefits are divisible marital property. He argues that, under the analytic approach, the trial court should not have awarded the former wife one-half of the benefits he may recover from his disability-insurance policies. In my view, the former husband sufficiently raised the issue of the divisibility of the disability-insurance benefits in the trial court and in the Court of Civil Appeals so as to preserve the issue for this Court's review.
In Smith v. Smith, 959 So. 2d 1146 (Ala. Civ. App. 2006), the Court of Civil Appeals discussed various approaches used to determine whether a portion of proceeds from a spouse's personal-injury claim can be awarded to the other spouse in a divorce judgment. The husband in Smith had agreed during the marriage to accept a payment in settlement of a personal-injury claim arising out of injuries he sustained in an automobile accident that had occurred during the marriage. According to the Court of Civil Appeals:
959 So. 2d at 1149. The Court of Civil Appeals in Smith adopted the analytic approach with respect to settlements of personal-injury claims. As the former husband points out, courts in other jurisdictions have analyzed disability-insurance benefits the same way they analyze personal-injury damages. See Hardin v. Hardin, 301 Ga. 532, 534, 801 S.E.2d 774, 776 (2017) ( ); Lachney v. Lachney, 529 So. 2d 59, 66 (La. Ct. App. 1988) ().
Of the different approaches, the analytic approach, which focuses on the loss or damage the benefits are intended to remedy, has been used by a majority of jurisdictions in determining whether disability-insurance benefits are divisible in divorce. Hardin, 301 Ga. at 534–35, 801 S.E.2d at 776–77 ; Finkel v. Finkel, 162 N.C. App. 344, 347, 590 S.E.2d 472, 474 (2004) (). See also Hudson v. Hudson, 865 S.W.2d 405, 407 (Mo. Ct. App. 1993) ().
Disability-insurance...
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