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****************************************************** The ``officially released'' date that appears near the beginning of each opinion is the date the opinion will be published in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it was released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the beginning of all time periods for filing postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the ``officially released'' date appearing in the opinion. In no event will any such motions be accepted before the ``officially released'' date. All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecticut Reports and Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the electronic version of an opinion and the print version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest print version is to be considered authoritative. The syllabus and procedural history accompanying the opinion as it appears on the Commission on Official Legal Publications Electronic Bulletin Board Service and in the Connecticut Law Journal and bound volumes of official reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced and distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publications, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. ****************************************************** SHARON BENDER v. MARK BENDER (AC 18968)
Lavery, C. J., and Landau and Mihalakos, Js. Argued June 8--officially released October 3, 2000 Counsel

Barry T. Pontolillo, for the appellant (defendant). Joseph R. Galotti, Jr., for the appellee (plaintiff).
Opinion

LANDAU, J. This is an appeal from a judgment rendered in a dissolution proceeding involving property division, alimony and support and custody orders. The principle issue in this appeal is whether the trial court's award of a nonvested pension benefit held by the defendant, Mark Bender, was impermissibly speculative. The defendant claims, inter alia, that the court should have used the known present value of the nonvested pension benefit in determining its final orders rather than the nonvested future benefit. We affirm the judgment of the trial court. The relevant procedural and factual background is as follows. The parties were married in November, 1976.

The defendant has been employed as a firefighter by the city of Meriden for approximately nineteen years and is entitled to a pension as a firefighter in the event that he reaches twenty-five years of service. Thus, his pension, at the time of trial, was nonvested except for purposes of disability.1 The principal cause for the breakdown of the marriage was that most of the defendant's free time was spent in pursuits that did not include the plaintiff, Susan Bender, or their children, such as his hobbies of motorcycling, boating and fishing. The court found that there had been some violence in the family.2 The defendant also had been sexually intimate with at least one other woman during the marriage, a relationship that continued to the time of trial. Despite a fairly good income and extremely small housing expenses, the parties acquired few assets and little savings. Nearly all discretionary income during the marriage was expended on the defendant's personal pursuits. The sole substantial asset of the marriage is the defendant's nonvested pension right. The court ordered, inter alia, that ``[u]ntil such time, if any, as [the] defendant's right to receive retirement benefits from the city of Meriden vests, [the] plaintiff shall be the beneficiary of, and be entitled to receive, the refundable contributions, with accrued interest or yield thereon, if any, made by or on behalf of [the] defendant if such contributions, etc. . . . shall ever become payable by the city of Meriden. And there is hereby entered a qualified domestic relations order assigning to [the] plaintiff one half of the disability and/ or retirement benefits earned by [the defendant] from his employment by the city of Meriden for his labors for said city through the date of this decree. (The court is aware that [the] defendant's right to receive retirement benefits has not yet vested.)'' The defendant claims first that the court ``engaged in unbridled speculation'' when it awarded the nonvested future benefit to the plaintiff instead of utilizing the known present value of the contributions into the pension in determining its financial orders. The defendant argues that the only evidence introduced at trial was the present value of his contributions into the pension fund, which the court found to be $27,741. Therefore, there was no factual basis contained within the record to support the actions of the court. ``There are three stages of analysis regarding the equitable distribution of each resource: first, whether the resource is property within [General Statutes]

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Connecticut Law