In re the Marriage of: Peter Farrell v. Aimee Olson

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2012).
STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A14-0563
In re the Marriage of:
Peter Farrell, petitioner,
Appellant,
vs.
Aimee Olson,
Respondent.
Filed October 20, 2014
Affirmed
Stoneburner, Judge
Ramsey County District Court
File No. 62-FA-12-1812
Ryan L. Kaess, Kaess Law, LLC, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)
Aimee Olson, St. Paul, Minnesota (pro se respondent)
Considered and decided by Kirk, Presiding Judge; Hudson, Judge; and
Stoneburner, Judge.

Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
STONEBURNER, Judge
In this dissolution action, appellant challenges the district court’s denial of his
post-trial motion to add ten percent interest to cash awarded as a property-division
equalizer. We affirm.
FACTS
Appellant Peter Farrell (husband) was awarded $354,361 as a property-division
equalizer in this dissolution action, to be paid by respondent Aimee Olson (wife) at the
rate of $4,000 per month. The district court did not award interest on the equalizer.
Husband brought a post-trial motion seeking the addition of ten percent interest on the
award. The district court denied the motion, adopted wife’s proposal that if wife is more
than one month delinquent in payments, husband may obtain a judgment against wife for
the full unpaid portion of the $354,361 award plus post-judgment interest as required by
Minn. Stat. § 549.09, subd.1(c)(2) (2012) (currently providing for post-judgment interest
at the rate of ten percent). This appeal followed.
DECISION
1. Statutory post-judgment interest
On appeal, husband argues that the interest he seeks is mandated by Minn. Stat.
§ 549.09, subd. 1(c)(2), and the district court is without discretion to deny the addition of
post-judgment interest. The interpretation and application of a statute involves questions
of law that we review de novo. Redleaf v. Redleaf, 807 N.W.2d 731, 733 (Minn. App.
2011).
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Minn. Stat. § 549.09, subd. 1(c)(2), provides that “[f]or a judgment or award over
$50,000, . . . the interest rate shall be ten percent per year until paid.” In Riley v. Riley,
385 N.W.2d 883, 888 (Minn. App. 1986), we held that cash awards in dissolution
property divisions are no different from judgments for recovery of money in other types
of cases. In Riley, husband was ordered to pay wife $30,000 in cash as part of the
property division, due 30 days after entry of the decree. Id. Husband failed to make the
payment until more than a year after payment was due, and we ordered the district court
to award statutory post-judgment interest to wife from the date the payment was due until
the date the payment was made. Id. More recently, in Redleaf, we similarly held that a
“payee spouse is entitled to ten percent interest per year on a money judgment from an
overdue marital-property payment.” 807 N.W.2d at 735 (emphasis added). The holdings
of these cases are consistent with Minn. Stat. § 549.09, subd. 2 (2012), which provides
that “interest shall accrue on the unpaid balance of the judgment from the time that it is
entered or made until paid.”
Husband relies on Redleaf to argue that the district court lacks discretion to deny
statutory post-judgment interest on a cash award in a dissolution action. But husband
ignores Minn. Stat. § 549.09, subd. 2, and the holdings of Riley and Redleaf, which state
that post-judgment interest at the statutory rate does not begin to accrue until a payment
is “unpaid” or “overdue,” under a court-ordered payment schedule. And husband has not
cited any authority that a district court must award interest on a marital-dissolution award
before payment is due or any authority showing the failure to award interest on this
award is reversible error. As noted below, the district court, in denying husband’s
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motion, explained why it exercised its discretion not to award interest. We conclude that
the district court did not err by denying husband’s motion for interest on payments not
yet due and did not abuse its discretion by making post-judgment interest dependent on
wife’s failure to make timely payments, as ordered in the decree.
2. Unjust enrichment
Husband also argues that the district court’s failure to award interest on the
equalizer results in unjust enrichment to wife. Husband cites Schumacher v.
Schumacher, 627 N.W.2d 725, 729 (Minn. App. 2001), for the proposition that unjust
enrichment occurs when a party knowingly receives something of value to which the
party is not entitled, and the circumstances are such that it would be unjust for the person
to retain the benefit. Schumacher is not a dissolution case. There, a son sued his parents
alleging promissory estoppel and unjust enrichment based on the parents’ alleged
breaches of promises to employ the son for life and to make a will. Id. at 727.
An action for unjust enrichment does not lie simply because
one party benefits from the efforts of others; instead, “it must
be shown that a party was unjustly enriched in the sense that
the term ‘unjustly’ could mean illegally or unlawfully.”
Id. at 729 (citations omitted). The record reflects that husband loaned wife money for
the start-up of her business, and husband asserts that he made the loan “with the
expectation there would be a rate of return on his investment.” But, as the district court
noted in its order denying husband’s post-trial motion:
The Court deliberately did not include a judgment interest
provision in the [decree]. The sum to be paid by Wife to
Husband is substantially Husband’s marital portion of Wife’s
business. This sum represents a handsome return on the
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original investment. The accrual of 10% interest on the
equalizer would nearly double the payout to Husband,
creating for him a windfall and for wife an unreasonable
hardship.
Husband has not made any showing that wife acted illegally or unlawfully; to the
contrary, the district court made its reasoned determination that husband has received a
more-than-adequate return on his investment despite denial of his request for interest on
the award. We find no merit in husband’s claim of unjust enrichment.
Affirmed.
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