Opinion
D81-3165; CA A29155
Argued and submitted April 13, 1984
Affirmed as modified August 1, 1984
Appeal from Circuit Court, Douglas County.
Don H. Sanders, Judge.
James C. Farrell, Roseburg, argued the cause and filed the brief for appellant.
Peter Kelsay, Cottage Grove, argued the cause and filed the brief for respondent.
Before Richardson, Presiding Judge, and Warden and Newman, Judges.
PER CURIAM
Modified to eliminate award of attorney fees to wife and to limit wife's spousal support to five years from date of original decree; affirmed as modified. Costs to neither party.
In this dissolution of marriage case, husband assigns as error three aspects of the trial court's decree. We do not agree that it was error for the court not to disentangle completely the parties' property interests; the court reasonably concluded that substantial encumbrances on the properties make complete disentanglement impractical at the present time. We do agree that it was error for the court to award attorney fees to wife in the absence of a stipulation that the court could award fees and without an evidentiary hearing. Trudel and Trudel, 45 Or. App. 663, 608 P.2d 1230, rev den 289 Or. 209 (1980); Easton and Easton, 36 Or. App. 619, 585 P.2d 46 (1978), rev den 285 Or. 1 (1979); Fery and Fery, 20 Or. App. 581, 532 P.2d 1131 (1975). We also agree that it was error to award wife, a 37-year-old woman with reasonable prospects of becoming employed at a decent wage, permanent spousal support after 14 years of marriage. Coats and Coats, 64 Or. App. 594, 669 P.2d 370 (1983). We conclude that spousal support should be limited to five years.
The decree is modified to eliminate the award of attorney fees to wife and to limit her spousal support to five years from the date of the original decree; affirmed as modified. Costs to neither party.