## Facts

- Kenneth H. Laing (husband) and Marla M. Laing (wife) dissolved an approximately twenty-year marriage.
- At divorce, the husband was about 50 and employed at Union Chemicals (UNOCAL), earning roughly $40,000 by August 1985 (about $61,471 in 1984).
- The wife, about 49, worked as a dental office receptionist/clerk with gross annual income of about $18,750 and had serious health problems, including arthritis and possible multiple sclerosis.
- The wife entered the marriage with separate property, including a furnished home with about $15,000 equity, about $10,000 in death benefits from a prior marriage, and a car worth about $500; the husband had no substantial premarital assets.
- During the marriage, the wife performed most housework and child care, including during roughly ten years of outside employment.
- The superior court divided the marital estate under Alaska’s equitable distribution criteria (*Merrill* factors), awarding the wife about $221,444 and the husband about $158,733.
- The superior court treated the husband’s nonvested UNOCAL pension as marital property, valued it at present value, awarded it to the husband, and gave the wife offsetting property.

## Issues

1. Whether the superior court abused its discretion by awarding the wife more than 50% of the marital estate under Alaska’s equitable distribution criteria.
2. Whether the superior court erred by treating the husband’s nonvested pension as a presently divisible marital asset and offsetting the wife’s share based on its present valuation.

## Decision

- The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s overall findings and conclusions supporting an unequal property division in the wife’s favor.
- The court reversed the superior court’s disposition of the husband’s nonvested pension, holding it could not be presently divided on the record presented.
- The court remanded with instructions to redetermine the property division consistent with its treatment of nonvested pension rights.

## Legal Principles

- Trial courts have broad discretion in dividing marital property; appellate review asks whether the division is clearly unjust.
- An equitable distribution in a long-term marriage may award one spouse more than 50% when supported by factors such as disparate earning capacities, health limitations affecting future needs, and substantial homemaking and child-care contributions.
- A nonvested pension interest is contingent and speculative; it may not be treated as a presently divisible marital asset through a lump-sum present-value offset in the initial property division on this record.
- When a nonvested pension is improperly included in a present division, the property distribution must be recalculated without that present-division method.

## Conclusion

The court upheld an unequal equitable distribution favoring the wife as within the superior court’s discretion, but reversed the present valuation and offset-based division of the husband’s nonvested pension as impermissibly speculative, remanding for a revised property division.


Laing v. Laing, 741 P.2d 649 (Alaska 1987)