Facts
The marriage of A. and B. X.-Y. was divorced by judgment of the District Court of N. of 24 and 27 June 1966. A. X. was ordered to pay his ex-wife a monthly pension of CHF 700, progressively increased to CHF 1,000 after the majority of the youngest child. In 1987, B. X.-Y. filed a request to modify the divorce judgment, claiming an adaptation of the pension to inflation, i.e. CHF 1,950 per month with future indexation. The District Court granted the request. On appeal, the Cantonal Court reduced the pension to CHF 1,500 per month with a new formulation of the indexation clause. Both parties appealed against this judgment.Considerations
According to the case law of the Federal Tribunal, the indexation of a maintenance or replacement pension is permitted even against the will of the debtor, provided that the latter's income follows the development of inflation. This case law also applies to a subsequent request for adaptation of the pension to inflation, without this being a material increase in the pension prohibited by Art. 153 para. 2 CC, but only a preservation of its real value.
In the present case, the pension granted to the claimant was primarily intended to compensate for the loss of the right to maintenance. It is therefore necessary to examine whether the defendant's income has adapted to inflation since the divorce. If this is only to a limited extent, the claim should not be purely rejected, but partially granted.
Although the defendant only has an AVS pension as ordinary income, he has substantial assets. In this atypical case, the income derived from these assets must also be taken into account in assessing the…