Opinion
(14539)
Submitted on briefs January 29, 1997
Officially released April 22, 1997
Action for the dissolution of a marriage, and for other relief, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of New Haven and tried to the court, McWeeny, J.; judgment dissolving the marriage and granting certain other relief; thereafter, the court denied the plaintiff's motion to open and to modify the judgment, and the plaintiff appealed to this court; subsequently, the court, Munro, J., granted the defendant's motions for modification of the child support and alimony awards and to find the plaintiff in contempt, and ordered the plaintiff to make certain payments, and the plaintiff amended his appeal; thereafter, the court, McWeeny, J., issued a supplemental award of attorney's fees and ordered that the plaintiff be placed in the custody of the commissioner of correction, and the plaintiff further amended his appeal. Reversed in part; judgment directed.
Williams R. Bowles, pro se, and Mark R. Soboslai, filed a brief for the appellant (plaintiff).
Diane Polan filed a brief for the appellee (defendant).
The marriage of the parties was dissolved on December 22, 1994. The plaintiff now appeals from postjudgment orders issued by the trial court. We affirm the judgment of the trial court in all respects except the continuation of life insurance naming the children as beneficiaries beyond the statutory age of majority, i.e., eighteen. The defendant agrees that the trial court exceeded its authority in ordering that life insurance be maintained beyond the eighteenth birthday of each child. See Broaca v. Broaca, 181 Conn. 463, 466, 435 A.2d 1016 (1980).
The trial court's order pertaining to life insurance read as follows: "The plaintiff shall maintain life insurance in the face amount of $250,000 naming the minor children as equal beneficiaries until such time as the youngest child attains the age of twenty-one."
In Broaca, the trial court ordered insurance, as well as support, for the benefit of the minor children until the youngest child reached twenty-one. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court, which had opened and modified its original judgment to vacate that portion of the original decree that had ordered the designation of children, regardless of age, to be beneficiaries of a life insurance policy.
The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded with direction to render judgment as on file except as modified to order that life insurance be maintained designating each child as beneficiary until that child reaches the age of eighteen.