Frieda Leslie v. William Leslie

In November of 1989, William Leslie, former husband of Frieda Leslie, instituted a modification proceeding to eliminate an award of maintenance granted to Frieda Leslie in June of 1988. In the 1988 proceeding to dissolve the parties' thirty-four year marriage, the court divided the marital property and ordered Mr. Leslie to pay Ms. Leslie maintenance in the amount of $1,000 per month. A portion of the marital property set aside to Ms. Leslie included forty percent of pension benefits Mr. Leslie was to receive from two pension funds, General Motors and Chrysler. After the dissolution, Mr. Leslie retired. Each party commenced to receive portions of the Chrysler monthly pension benefit. In the proceeding on the motion to modify, the trial court found no substantial and continuing change of circumstances to require the court to eliminate maintenance but reduced the original maintenance award in an amount equal to the monthly payment from Chrysler. The court found that payment received by Ms. Leslie pursuant to the Chrysler pension benefit set aside to her in the division of marital property in the dissolution proceeding constituted a ""windfall"" never intended by the court in the original dissolution proceeding. The trial court further ordered that the maintenance award be reduced in the future when the second of Mr. Leslie's pensions began to pay. Both parties appealed from the trial court's order. Ms. Leslie contended that the trial court erred in reducing the maintenance award by the amount received from the portion of Mr. Leslie's pension from Chrysler set aside to her as marital property. She further contended that the trial court erred in reducing maintenance by an additional amount that she might ultimately receive from Mr. Leslie's pension through General Motors. Mr. Leslie contended that the trial court erred in not eliminating the maintenance award. The Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, affirmed the trial court's order reducing maintenance presently and reversed the order reducing maintenance in the future. This Court granted transfer. The judgment is reversed and remanded.