In re the Marriage of Steele

293 P.3d 1077, 254 Or. App. 79, 2012 WL 6191834, 2012 Ore. App. LEXIS 1490
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedDecember 12, 2012
Docket080868370; A143696
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 293 P.3d 1077 (In re the Marriage of Steele) 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 Steele, 293 P.3d 1077, 254 Or. App. 79, 2012 WL 6191834, 2012 Ore. App. LEXIS 1490 (Or. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

ORTEGA, R J.

Husband appeals a general judgment of dissolution, challenging an award of indefinite spousal support to wife and three supplemental judgments awarding wife attorney fees. We conclude that the trial court’s award of indefinite unallocated compensatory and maintenance spousal support of $4,200 per month is within the range of legally correct outcomes and reject husband’s attorney fee challenge without further discussion.

Husband seeks de novo review, requesting that we make one or more factual findings anew on the record and identifying those facts that he contends “do not comport with the evidence in the record.” We exercise our discretion to review de novo only in “exceptional cases,” ORAP 5.40(8)(c), and we are not persuaded that this is such a case. ORS 19.415(3)(b). Accordingly, because we decline to review the facts de novo, we are bound by the trial court’s findings of historical fact if there is any evidence in the record to support them. Berg and Berg, 250 Or App 1, 2, 279 P3d 286 (2012). “[T]he trial court’s award will be upheld if, given the findings of the trial court that are supported by the record, the court’s determination that an award of support is ‘just and equitable’ represents a choice among legally correct alternatives.” Id.

We state the facts as the trial court found them and as supplemented by our review of the record. The parties were married for 24 years and, at the time of the trial, both were in their mid-forties. Wife had completed two-and-one-half years of college at the time they married, and she completed her degree during the early years of the marriage. Initially, she worked in a college admissions office, but she quit her job in 1992 when the parties’ first child was born. The parties had agreed that, once they had a child, wife would stay home while husband provided the family’s sole source of income. The parties had a second child in 1998. At the time of trial, husband had custody of the older child and mother had custody of the younger child.

Husband has been a BIOS software engineer since 2000. He lacks a college degree (unusual for his field), but has an innate ability for the work; he showed an aptitude [81]*81for software programming while working for the Gresham Police Department in the 1990s as a technician, and he rose quickly in the field. He has received specialized training and has held a series of jobs as a software engineer. The trial court found that, at the time of trial, husband’s gross monthly income was $11,560. Wife, although unemployed, was taking online classes toward a master’s degree in accounting, which she expected to complete in two years. She had not worked since quitting her job in college admissions in 1992. The trial court imputed the minimum wage of $1,455 as wife’s gross monthly income.

During the marriage, the family’s finances were “sometimes good and sometimes bad.” However, the record reflects a series of financial difficulties. The parties lost their 2,500 square foot, four-bedroom, two-and-one-half bathroom Gresham house through foreclosure. The parties also had a vehicle repossessed and filed a joint bankruptcy at some point during the marriage. Wife also filed an individual bankruptcy during the marriage, and she testified at trial that she planned to file another bankruptcy following the dissolution. Husband had liquidated the majority of his retirement account during the marriage to pay off debt. The marital estate at the time of the trial was practically nonexistent.

Wife testified that her employment prospects were minimal, particularly in light of her physical ailments and the parties’ poor financial history. She explained that she suffers from various health problems, including permanent disabilities related to two auto accidents and complications from diabetes, which have affected her ability to work. In addition, wife testified that, even if she finished her master’s degree, her chosen field of accounting likely would be foreclosed to her as result of the parties’ financial history— that is, a person with her credit history would be undesirable to employers in the financial services field.

After the trial, the court awarded wife “indefinite unallocated compensatory and maintenance spousal support” of $4,200 per month based on the duration of the marriage, wife’s contribution to husband’s advancement in his career and earning capacity, wife’s custody of the younger child, the disparity in earning capacity between the parties, [82]*82wife’s unemployability, the tax consequences of the award to the parties, and the limited marital estate.

We begin with a brief overview of the types of spousal support that the court awarded here, keeping in mind that “[t]he lodestar of a court’s charge is to make a spousal support award that is just and equitable.’” Bailey and Bailey, 248 Or App 271, 276, 273 P3d 263 (2012); see ORS 107.105(l)(d). Compensatory spousal support is authorized

“when there has been a significant financial or other contribution by one party to the education, training, vocational skills, career or earning capacity of the other party and when an order for compensatory spousal support is otherwise just and equitable in all of the circumstances.”

ORS 107.105(l)(d)(B). In determining the amount and duration of such an award, the court considers the amount, duration, and nature of the contribution by the spouse, the duration of the marriage, the relative earning capacity of the parties, the extent to which the marital estate has already benefited from the contribution, the tax consequences to each party, and any other factors the court deems just and equitable. Id.

Maintenance support generally “allows one financially able spouse to contribute to the support of the other, depending on the financial needs and resources of each party.” Abrams and Abrams, 243 Or App 203, 207, 259 P3d 92, rev den, 350 Or 716 (2011). Although it is true, as husband points out, that, in determining the amount and duration of spousal support, the goal of self-sufficiency is an important consideration, in long-term marriages “the parties should be separated on as equal a footing as possible,” and the primary goal of spousal support is to provide a standard of living to both spouses that is roughly comparable to the one enjoyed during the marriage. Id. at 211-12. In determining the proper amount and duration of a maintenance spousal support award, the court considers the duration of the marriage; the age of the parties; their health, including their physical, mental, and emotional condition; the standard of living established during the marriage; the relative income and earning capacity of the parties; a party’s training and employment skills and work [83]*83experience; the financial needs and resources of each party; the tax consequences to each party; and a party’s custodial and child support responsibilities. ORS 107.105(l)(d)(C).

In a letter opinion to the parties, the court ruled that

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
293 P.3d 1077, 254 Or. App. 79, 2012 WL 6191834, 2012 Ore. App. LEXIS 1490, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-the-marriage-of-steele-orctapp-2012.