What Do I Know About Farming?

I was lucky enough to be born and raised in an upper-middle-class suburb of Columbus, Ohio. I learned how to take a bus, how to get downtown, and other urban skills. What I didn't learn was anything about farming.

A Domestic Relations judge usually is burdened with decisions concerning the care and support of children of divorcing parents, the division of marital assets and obligations, and the amount (if any) and duration of alimony payments. But, every so often, a novel question presents itself for resolution.

Actually, judges are only called-upon to resolve disputes when the parties and their attorneys are not able to do so. Fortunately, in the overwhelming number of cases, the problems are resolved by negotiation and the parties make appropriate decisions that work for them. Sometimes, however, the issue is so fraught with emotional overlay or economic consequence that the court has to step in and decide, regardless of how ill-equipped a judge might be to deal with a particular dispute.

In Ohio, family courts issues "temporary orders" designed to maintain a semblance of the status quo while divorce proceedings, which can last a year or more, go forward. I had not been on the bench very long when a disputing husband and wife appeared with their lawyers asking that I resolve a dispute that had arisen concerning their temporary orders. The parties owned a substantial farm with hundreds of tillable acres. Throughout the years of their marriage, they had decided together how to accllocate the fields between growing corn and growing soy beans. Now, with animosity between them at a peak, they asserted that they were unable to make the allocation for the coming growing season.

Both attorneys made impassioned arguments concerning why their client should have the authority to make this allocation. The husband wanted to plant beans; the wife, corn. I heard testimony about anticipated market fluctuations and likely weather conditions. Of course, I had no idea how to decide this agricultural dilemma. One could say that I didn't know beans about corn!

After the lawyers quieted down, they joined their clients, staring at me, waiting for my pronouncement. I suggested that they repair to a conference room and figure it out for themselves. I told them I had no idea what they should plant -- it all sounded like succotash to me.

Dejected by their inability to show me how wrong their spouses were, the parties left the courtroom.

About a half hour later, the attorneys came to see me in my office and told me that the farm couple had decided what to plant and in what quantities. A grand example of a family law dispute resolved as a result of the ignorance of the judge.