Made available by Touch N' Go Systems, Inc.
e-mail: touchngo@touchngo.com, and
Law Offices of James B. Gottstein.
406 G Street, Suite 210, Anchorage, AK 99501
(907) 274-7686 fax 333-5869
e-mail: jimgotts@touchngo.com
You can
recent opinions, or the
chronological or
subject indices.
R. Davila v. R. Davila (12/29/95), 908 P 2d 1025
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal correction
before publication in the Pacific Reporter. Readers
are requested to bring errors to the attention of the
Clerk of the Appellate Courts, 303 K Street, Anchorage,
Alaska 99501, telephone (907) 264-0607, fax (907) 276-
5808.
THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ALASKA
ROBERT DAVILA, )
) Supreme Court No. S-5551
Appellant, )
) Superior Court No.
v. ) 3PA-91-1014 DR
)
RITA DAVILA, ) O P I N I O N
)
Appellee. ) [No. 4305 - December 29, 1995]
______________________________)
Appeal from the Superior Court of the State
of Alaska, Third Judicial District,
Anchorage,
John R. Lohff, Judge.
Appearances: Allison E. Mendel, Mendel &
Huntington, Anchorage, for Appellant.
Kathleen C. Barron, Wasilla, for Appellee.
Before: Moore, Chief Justice, Rabinowitz,
Matthews, Compton, Justices, and Bryner,
Justice, pro tem.*
BRYNER, Justice, pro tem.
This divorce case returns to us following a remand to
the superior court for reconsideration and additional findings on
the issue of spousal support.
In Davila v. Davila, 876 P.2d 1089 (Alaska 1994), we
affirmed the trial court's valuation of marital property. Id. at
1092-93. As to spousal support, we upheld the trial court's
finding that Rita Davila left the marriage with vastly inferior
job skills and earning power than Robert Davila and concluded
that "[t]his is precisely the 'economic impact of divorce' which
AS 25.24.160(a)(2) directs the trial court to consider in
awarding spousal support." Davila, 876 P.2d at 1095. We
likewise held that the record supported the trial court's finding
that the parties had insufficient liquid assets to allow this
disparity to be balanced through the allocation of marital
property alone. Id.
However, we found that the trial court's findings with
regard to spousal support failed to specifically account for
either Rita's financial needs or Robert's financial needs and
ability to pay. Id. We also found that the trial court had
failed to explain sufficiently its decision, on reconsideration,
to substitute an increased amount of reorientation alimony for
its initial award, which provided for a combination of
reorientation and rehabilitation alimony. Id. We further
questioned the trial court's failure on reconsideration to
provide for Rita to receive a fifty percent share of Robert's
military retirement pay during the four-year period of spousal
support. Id. at 1096 n.4.1
Concluding that "[t]he trial court's failure to
address [these] issues with specificity in its findings precludes
informed appellate review by this court of the disputed alimony
award," we retained jurisdiction over the appeal and remanded for
reconsideration and additional findings. Id. at 1096, n.5. On
remand, the trial court entered additional findings and
reinstated its original order awarding Rita both reorientation
and rehabilitative alimony. Davila v. Davila, Additional
Findings on Remand (Aug. 12, 1994) (Superior Ct. No. 3PA-91-1014
DR). We must now consider whether the additional findings
support this award.
Having reviewed the trial court's additional findings
with regard to its decision on remand to reinstate the award of
$284 per month for four years as rehabilitative alimony, we hold
that the trial court's findings are supported by the evidence,
and we affirm its decision to reinstate rehabilitative alimony.
With regard to reorientation alimony, the trial court's
additional findings on remand are problematic in two respects.
First, the trial court's additional findings do not
explain or justify the court's failure to award Rita an equal
share of Robert's net military retirement pay (approximately
$283.30) during the first four years of the divorce -- the period
covered by the award of reorientation alimony. Reorientation
alimony is ordinarily appropriate only to the extent that marital
property cannot be divided in a way that provides for the
parties' needs.2 The record in this case indicates that $283.30
of the $560.60 monthly reorientation alimony that the trial court
ordered on remand could have been provided for by awarding Rita
half of Robert's net military retirement beginning at the
inception of the divorce, rather than upon termination of the
four-year period of alimony.3 The award of reorientation alimony
thus amounts to an abuse of discretion to the extent it
incorporates $283.30 per month that could have been awarded as
part of the property division.
Second, the trial court's findings on remand fail to
justify the court's decision to order reorientation alimony for a
period of four years. As we observed in our original opinion,
reorientation alimony is essentially transitional and may be
awarded for brief periods to provide support pending the sale of
marital property or to enable a spouse "to get a job appropriate
to the spouse's existing skills." Davila, 876 P.2d at 1094 n.3
(emphasis added). Here, the trial court's award of four years of
reorientation alimony extends well beyond the time reasonably
necessary to enable Rita to sell the family home, and the record
does not support the trial court's conclusion that the level of
reorientation alimony it awarded is necessary to allow Rita to
obtain adequate housing after the family home is sold. Moreover,
Rita was already employed at a job appropriate to her existing
skills. Furthermore, the record fails to support the trial
court's conclusion that the level of reorientation alimony it
awarded is necessary to allow Rita to continue paying for housing
after the family home is sold.4
In our original opinion, we noted that, given the
transitional purposes of reorientation alimony, "it is difficult
to imagine circumstances under which an award of reorientation
alimony extending for longer than one year would be justified."
Id. Neither the trial court's original findings nor its
additional findings on remand set forth exceptional circumstances
supporting more than one year of reorientation alimony. We
therefore conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in
awarding reorientation alimony of more than one year's duration.
Accordingly, the award of spousal support, as provided
for by the trial court on remand, is AFFIRMED in part and
REVERSED in part. This case is REMANDED to the trial court with
directions to modify the award in conformity with this decision.5
_______________________________
* Sitting by assignment made under article IV, section 16
of the Alaska Constitution.
1 The original award of spousal support called for Rita
to receive $284 monthly in rehabilitative alimony for four years
and $566.60 monthly in reorientation alimony, also for four
years. The $566.60 per month the trial court established as
reorientation alimony was the same as Robert's net monthly
military retirement pay, and the court ordered that Rita receive
the reorientation alimony directly from the military. After four
years, Robert's net retirement pay was to be divided equally
between the parties.
In a motion for reconsideration, Robert asserted that
the simultaneous award of both rehabilitative and reorientation
alimony was impermissible. Rita, in a separate motion for
reconsideration, pointed out that 10 U.S.C. ' 1408(e)(1)
precluded an assignment to her of more than fifty percent of
Robert's net retirement pay. The trial court's order on
reconsideration eliminated rehabilitative alimony and awarded
Rita monthly reorientation alimony payments of $800 for two years
and $700 for an additional two years. The court vacated its
original order requiring that the reorientation alimony be paid
from Robert's military retirement pay. The court did not award
Rita any portion of Robert's retirement pay during the initial
four years when the alimony payments were to be made. However, it
left intact its original order requiring that Robert's military
retirement pay be divided equally after four years.
2 See Davila, 876 P.2d at 1094, (citing Richmond v.
Richmond, 779 P.2d 1211, 1215 n.6 (Alaska 1989)).
3 On remand, although the trial court reinstated its
original award of both reorientation and rehabilitation alimony,
it did not reinstate the original provision requiring that the
$566.60 in reorientation alimony be paid from Robert's military
retirement. However, the court again left intact the provision
of its original order that Robert's retirement pay be divided
between the parties only after the four-year period of alimony
payments ended. Hence, Rita's $566.60 monthly reorientation
alimony award continues to reflect an actual monthly value to her
of $283.30 over what she would be entitled to receive under an
equal division of Robert's net military retirement pay. The same
result could be achieved by simply awarding Rita fifty percent of
Robert's net military retirement pay from the inception of the
divorce and reducing the amount of reorientation alimony by
$283.30.
4 As Robert correctly points out, assuming that the sale
of the home netted Rita $17,000, this sum of money,
conservatively invested at five percent interest, would enable
Rita to make monthly payments of $391 for four years -- a sum
significantly greater than the $283.30 benefit Rita would derive
from the trial court's award of reorientation alimony,
considering that the award must be discounted to reflect money
that Rita is entitled to receive as her share of Robert's
military retirement pay. Assuming, as the trial court evidently
did, that the net monthly benefit of $283.30 Rita receives from
the reorientation alimony would be adequate to tide her over
until she sold the family home, it is unclear why this alimony
would remain necessary after the home's sale.
5 Specifically, the trial court, upon remand, should
modify the judgment by (1) reducing the amount of monthly
reorientation alimony to $283.30; (2) reducing the duration of
the reorientation alimony to one year; and (3) amending the
property division to award Rita fifty percent of Robert's net
military retirement pay as of the inception of the divorce,
rather than upon termination of alimony payments. To determine
the current status of support payments, the trial court should
calculate the total amount of military retirement pay and
reorientation and rehabilitative alimony that Rita would be
currently due under the modified judgment if the modified
judgment had been in effect at all pertinent times; from this
sum, the court should subtract all previous payments of spousal
support actually made by Robert in accordance with the trial
court's prior spousal support orders.