In Re the Marriage of Brown

183 P.3d 207, 219 Or. App. 475, 2008 Ore. App. LEXIS 518
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedApril 23, 2008
Docket04DM0201; A129850
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 183 P.3d 207 (In Re the Marriage of Brown) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re the Marriage of Brown, 183 P.3d 207, 219 Or. App. 475, 2008 Ore. App. LEXIS 518 (Or. Ct. App. 2008).

Opinion

*477 ARMSTRONG, J.

Husband appeals from a dissolution judgment awarding wife spousal support from husband’s interests in two family trusts created by husband’s father and grandmother. On de novo review, ORS 19.415(3), we reverse the award of spousal support, modify the property division by awarding wife, as part of the parties’ property division, one-half of husband’s interest in both trusts, and otherwise affirm.

Husband and wife were married for 24 years. They lived the majority of their married life in Montana, where they raised one daughter and where both practiced law: wife at Montana’s water court, and husband in private practice, and in a county prosecutor’s office. In this appeal, the dispute concerns the disposition of two family trusts of which husband is a beneficiary. Both trusts were created before husband’s marriage, but husband received nothing from either trust until 1997.

The first trust, the Brown-Moore Trust, was created by husband’s grandmother and grants to husband and his two sisters a monthly mandatory distribution of the trust’s income. Husband’s and his sisters’ interests in the Brown-Moore Trust are for life only. Upon each sibling’s death, that sibling’s then-living children receive the deceased sibling’s share of the trust. In husband’s case, his daughter would be entitled to one-third of the trust upon his death.

The second trust, the Brown Trust, was created by husband’s father and grants to husband and his two sisters a monthly mandatory distribution of the trust’s income, until the youngest sibling turns 55, at which time each of the three siblings receives one-third of the trust corpus. At the time of the dissolution trial, which was just a year and a half before his youngest sibling’s 55th birthday, the value of husband’s interest in the Brown Trust corpus was $250,000.

Although husband argues that wife understood that he and wife would not depend on the trusts for their income, it is clear from the evidence that, not long after husband began receiving income from the trusts, the trusts became a *478 significant financial asset for husband and wife. Less than a year after he began receiving income from the trusts, husband, concerned about his physical health after being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, quit his full-time work at the prosecutor’s office and began working on a part-time basis in various positions, including legal consulting, teaching at a university, and sitting in for judges at the city court. His earnings from those jobs totaled about half the earnings that he had received while at the prosecutor’s office. Despite that, husband and wife decided to build a new home, which wife described as her “dream home,” in Bozeman, Montana. Husband’s sister, the trustee of both trusts, agreed to mortgage an asset of the Brown Trust corpus, a condominium in California, in order to provide husband and wife with sufficient funds to finance the construction of their new home. Husband and wife took the biggest portion of the mortgage proceeds, but husband’s sisters also received some proceeds as well.

Even before the parties had built their new home, husband talked about leaving Montana and both husband and wife “retiring.” After their daughter graduated from high school in 2000, husband’s conversations with wife about retiring became more serious. Husband and wife, at this time, were in their mid-fifties, and wife did not want to leave her job, where she had achieved “quite a bit of success,” nor did she wish to leave her home. Wife also expressed concern about whether they really had the income to retire. In particular, she was concerned about paying for their daughter’s college education and still having sufficient funds to retire. Husband approached his sister about invading his portion of the Brown Trust in order for husband and wife to have more funds, but husband’s sister refused. Eventually, husband’s sister used part of the Brown-Moore Trust to pay some of their daughter’s college expenses.

Husband continued to assure wife that they would have sufficient funds for them both to quit their employment in Bozeman. He testified that they discussed that, upon retiring, their monthly income would consist of an annuity from wife’s stepfather, some monthly disbursements from deferred compensation plans, payments from wife’s state retirement account, and his dispersals from the trusts, and that “if we were running low on cash, [we could get] part-time jobs or *479 full-time jobs for awhile.” Wife testified that husband was consistent in his statements to her that the trust income and the trust corpus “would be available to fund this retirement.” By the time that wife agreed with husband to retire, husband was receiving $1,000 per month from the Brown Trust and $430 per month from the Brown-Moore Trust, all of which was deposited each month in the parties’ joint checking account. Their other monthly income totaled $1,400 per month.

In 2002, husband and wife sold their home. According to husband, the parties then had approximately $120,000 in assets. They financed the purchase of a fifth-wheel trailer, traveled for a few months, and eventually settled in Gold Beach, Oregon, where they financed the purchase of a second recreational vehicle (RV). They maintained the RV as a stationary “home base” in an RV park, even constructing an addition to the RV and building decks around it. Sometime thereafter, it became clear that they did not have enough income to pay their monthly bills. Their $120,000 in assets had been spent, and their monthly fixed expenses by then included $670 per month for the fifth wheel, $690 per month for the mortgage on the RV, and $425 per month for the trailer park space rent. Husband began working as a private investigator, and wife worked in the trailer park office.

In 2004, wife and husband separated, and wife eventually moved back to Montana. At the time of trial, husband was still working part-time as a private investigator, and wife was working part-time in private legal practice, but they generated only modest incomes from their respective jobs. Moreover, their debt had grown, with wife, at the time of trial, having credit card and furniture store debt totaling $11,000, and husband having credit card debt totaling $25,500. Their fifth wheel was valued at $13,000 less than they owed on it, and the parties were having difficulty selling their RV, because although the RV, in its stationary setting and with the improvements husband and wife had made to it, was worth $130,000, no financial institution would finance its purchase.

The trial court concluded that husband’s trust interests had been “completely integrated into the financial planning of the parties.” The trial court, therefore, granted wife a *480 judgment of $400 per month from husband’s future trust income distributions until the RV was sold and, thereafter, a judgment of one-half of both trusts’ monthly income distributions and one-half of any distribution of the Brown Trust corpus. The trial court furthermore ordered that these monies be treated as spousal support.

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Related

In re the Marriage of Johnson
380 P.3d 983 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2016)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
183 P.3d 207, 219 Or. App. 475, 2008 Ore. App. LEXIS 518, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-the-marriage-of-brown-orctapp-2008.