In re the Marriage of Hall

977 P.2d 387, 159 Or. App. 196, 1999 Ore. App. LEXIS 388
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedMarch 17, 1999
Docket96-01-37207; CA A100167
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 977 P.2d 387 (In re the Marriage of Hall) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re the Marriage of Hall, 977 P.2d 387, 159 Or. App. 196, 1999 Ore. App. LEXIS 388 (Or. Ct. App. 1999).

Opinion

HASELTON, J.

Wife appeals from a dissolution judgment, challenging the trial court’s division of property. ORS 107.105. She assigns error to the trial court’s determination that certain investment accounts (Waterhouse accounts) were “separate” property rather than marital assets, and argues that the trial court’s division of the accounts resulted in an inequitable distribution. Husband cross-appeals, also assigning error to the property distribution. We agree with wife that, to the extent the Waterhouse accounts contain marital assets, they must be considered in the equal distribution of marital assets and, consequently, we modify the judgment. We also modify the judgment on cross-appeal.

The parties were married for 15 years1 and have no children from this marriage. At the time of dissolution, wife was 60 years old, and husband was 73. Wife has not worked since the parties’ separation and lives with a son from a previous marriage and provides care to his children. Husband, although he did not have definite plans, testified at trial that he was semi-retired and that he would like to retire fully within the year.

The assets in husband’s name at the time of marriage included a house in La Grande, adjoining vacant land, a commercial building, 30.11 acres on Wallowa Lake, a cabin on 19 acres adjacent to the Wallowa Lake property, two notes receivable from the sale of property, office equipment, and stocks, bonds and various investment accounts. The value of those assets at the time of the marriage was $311,000. Wife brought personal property and cash into the marriage with a total value of approximately $20,000.

After the parties married, they moved into the La Grande house. They opened a joint checking account, and-[199]*199wife’s name was added to husband’s business checking account, the various investment accounts, and the stocks and bonds.

In 1982, approximately a year after they were married, the parties separated for seven months. During that time, they entered into negotiations for a dissolution settlement. As part of those negotiations, wife executed a power of attorney granting husband the authority to transfer all the jointly held investment accounts, stocks, and bonds into his individual name. Despite their subsequent reconciliation, husband transferred all the investments into his individual name, where they remained throughout the marriage. Husband testified that the transfer of the investments was not a result of the dissolution negotiation but, rather, was a joint decision to establish separate retirement accounts.

During the marriage, the parties generated significant income. Husband had been a doctor of chiropractic medicine for over 30 years and maintained a private practice throughout the marriage. He operated the chiropractic business initially as a sole proprietorship and later, during the last few years of the marriage, as a corporation which allowed him to draw social security income benefits.2 Throughout the marriage, wife worked for husband full-time, plus half days on Saturday. During the early years, while the business was a sole proprietorship, wife did not receive a salary for those services. Rather, husband merely took “draws” from the chiropractic practice’s income, which did not differentiate between husband’s and wife’s contribution to the practice. After the practice was incorporated, wife was paid a salary as an employee, and husband opened a retirement account (Waterhouse SEP) as part of her employment compensation. During the years that the chiropractic practice was a sole proprietorship, the parties paid their living expenses with the draws of income from the chiropractic business; after the incorporation, those expenses were paid-[200]*200primarily from wife’s salary. Over the course of the marriage, husband also collected over $188,000 in rental income from his commercial property, significant interest income on the notes receivable, and social security income benefits. With the exception of the Wallowa Lake property, the parties’ property increased significantly in value during the marriage, and they accumulated significant assets. The parties also acquired antique cars valued at $99,750, as well as office equipment and personal property.

The parties opened six investment accounts during the marriage, one with Smith-Barney, and five accounts that the parties refer to as the “Waterhouse accounts.” Two of the Waterhouse accounts were held solely in wife’s name: her employment-related SEP account worth $19,905, and an IRA account worth $13,491. The source of the funds in the IRA is unclear on this record. Three of the Waterhouse accounts were held solely in husband’s name and were worth $571,157.3 Husband testified that his Waterhouse accounts contained some of his premarital investments, as well as property acquired during the marriage, including income from the rental property, his social security benefits, an $8,000 inheritance, and interest collected on the notes receivable.

Throughout the marriage, in addition to his work as a chiropractor, husband controlled and managed the parties’ finances. He also made noneconomic contributions to the acquisition of marital assets. Specifically, he worked around the properties doing repairs, maintenance, and improvements. Throughout the marriage, wife, in addition to her full-time work in the chiropractic business, did the cooking, cleaning and laundry for the parties. Additionally, she made other noneconomic contributions to the acquisition of marital assets. Those contributions included stacking and hauling firewood, which provided the sole source of heat for their home, yard work, assisting in the maintenance and improvement of the commercial property — including reroofing and [201]*201cleanup during remodeling of that property, maintenance of the home and vacant land, and assisting husband in building a bridge as access between the two Wallowa Lake properties.

After trial, the court awarded husband all the real property, his three Waterhouse accounts, and one half of the remaining property.4 The value of property received by husband was $855,424.50. The trial court awarded wife her two Waterhouse accounts, the remaining half of the divided property and, a $187,867.50 equalizing judgment, representing one half the value of the parties’ cabin on Wallowa Lake, one half the value of the appreciation in husband’s real property, and one half the value of the rental income from the commercial property collected during the marriage. The total value of property received by wife was $308,148.50.5 In dividing the property, the court reasoned that the real property was husband’s premarital property and that the Waterhouse accounts were separate, not marital, assets.

On appeal, wife challenges the trial court’s property division and, particularly, its treatment of the increase in the Waterhouse accounts as separate, rather than marital assets. Wife asserts that the difference of $547,276 between the parties’ recovery ($855,424.50 verses $308,148.50) is insupportable to the extent it exceeds the $251,000 net difference between the values of the assets husband and wife brought into the marriage.6 The crux of the dispute, as wife frames it, is the court’s treatment of the Waterhouse accounts as being “separate” property in their entirety.

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Related

In the Matter of Marriage of Carlson
236 P.3d 810 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2010)
In the Matter of Marriage of Proctor
234 P.3d 133 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2010)

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Bluebook (online)
977 P.2d 387, 159 Or. App. 196, 1999 Ore. App. LEXIS 388, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-the-marriage-of-hall-orctapp-1999.