NO ABUSE OF DISCRETION IN AWARDING PERMANENT ALIMONY AS A LUMP SUM UPON FINDING THAT HUSBAND HAD A HISTORY OF UNFAIR UNILATERAL FINANCIAL DECISIONS, WASTE, AND A CURRENT RELUCTANCE TO WORK.
The trial court was asked to consider only the wife's claim for permanent and retroactive alimony and her claim that the liquid marital assets should be distributed unequally due to the husband's dissipation of certain marital assets during the marriage. At the close of the dissolution proceedings, the trial court awarded the wife permanent alimony payable as lump sum as well as retroactive alimony. It also found that the husband had dissipated marital assets, and it charged those dissipated assets to the Husband in its equitable distribution scheme.
With regard to the wife's entitlement, the District Court held: "Based on these facts, it was not unreasonable for the trial court to suspect that the Husband might find ways to avoid the payment of any permanent periodic alimony it would award. Indeed, the Husband relied on his current unemployment to argue that his Wife of thirty-eight years was not entitled to any permanent alimony, or at best a nominal sum, because he had no ability to pay. However, the Husband had substantial liquid assets from which he could easily pay an award of permanent alimony as a lump sum. The availability of these liquid assets coupled with the Husband's lack of current income constitute exactly the type of 'special circumstances' necessary to support the trial court's discretionary decision to award permanent alimony payable as a lump sum."
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