In re the Marriage of Wilson

964 P.2d 1052, 155 Or. App. 512
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedAugust 26, 1998
Docket94-0738-D-2; CA A97848
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 964 P.2d 1052 (In re the Marriage of Wilson) 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 Wilson, 964 P.2d 1052, 155 Or. App. 512 (Or. Ct. App. 1998).

Opinion

RIGGS, P. J.

Wife appeals a dissolution judgment, assigning error to the trial court’s property division. Husband cross-appeals, assigning error to the amount of the court’s award of spousal support. We review de novo. ORS 19.415(3). On the appeal, we reverse and remand for entry of a modified judgment concerning the property division. On the cross-appeal, we reverse and remand for recalculation of spousal support in light of the modified property division.

At the time of trial, the parties had been married 20 years and had lived together for most of the seven years prior to their marriage. Husband was 50, and wife was 46. Their 18-year-old daughter was attending college, and their 14-year-old son was a high school student. Both children lived with wife following the parties’ separation in December 1993.

Husband purchased his first long-haul truck in 1975 and is the sole owner and operator of Richard Wilson, Co., a Medford trucking company with a fleet of four trucks. Wife has a high school education and minimal work experience; since the parties’ marriage in 1976, wife has worked approximately two hours a month as a bookkeeper for husband’s trucking business and briefly as a manicurist, an activity at which she lost money. In addition, wife was a homemaker and cared for the couple’s children. Wife testified that husband and husband’s mother discouraged her from working and pressured her to stay at home with the children. Husband claimed that he encouraged wife to stay home only when their children were young and that he did not remember his mother discouraging wife from working. Wife also testified that she suffers chronic headaches and back pain requiring medication and extended periods of bed rest, which limit her ability to work.

The disputed property in this case came from husband’s parents, Steve and Eva, who owned various businesses and properties in the Medford area. Among them were Rubber Tree, Inc., a tire company, and Steve Wilson, Co., which was inactive at the time of trial but which owns significant real property. In 1991, Steve and Eva created the Steven O. Wilson Living Trust (the trust), which they funded [515]*515with stock and real property. The trust became irrevocable on Steve Wilson’s death and provides that Eva Wilson, as the surviving spouse, is the income beneficiary and may invade the corpus of the trust if necessary to maintain the standard of living she enjoyed during marriage. To date, Eva Wilson has not invaded the trust corpus. On her death, the trust and any unused income therefrom will devolve equally to husband, his brother Larry, and his sister Alice.

In addition to the trust, husband’s parents made several gifts of stock and real property to husband. Those include a 20.2-percent interest in a lot at 2850 Crater Lake Highway in Medford, which was given to husband and wife jointly; a one-third interest in Rubber Tree, Inc.; and periodic gifts of stock in Steve Wilson, Co., which total approximately 31 percent of the company’s stock. Husband received his first gift of Steve Wilson, Co., stock in 1962 and continued to receive gifts of stock until 1988.

At trial, wife argued that the property at 2850 Crater Lake Highway, the Rubber Tree, Inc., stock, the Steve Wilson, Co., stock and the interest in the trust were marital assets subject to the presumption of equal contribution and should be divided between the parties. She testified that she was close to husband’s parents and that she helped care for husband’s father during the last year of his life. She further testified that she and husband relied upon the trust and gifts from husband’s parents in planning their retirement. Husband denied that he considered those properties in his family retirement planning, although he conceded that he had cashed out the parties’ life insurance policy and two IRAs in 1990. He also testified that neither he nor wife worked for Rubber Tree, Inc., or Steve Wilson, Co., during their marriage, although husband uses real property owned by Steve Wilson, Co., to store his trucking equipment.

The court determined that husband’s monthly income was $4,000 and set wife’s spousal support at $1,500 per month for five years and $500 per month for an indeterminate period thereafter. In its property division, the court treated Richard Wilson, Co., and the Rubber Tree stock as marital assets and ordered husband to pay wife one-half the cash value of those interests. However, the court stated that [516]*516husband may delay payment of the value of the Rubber Tree stock until that stock is sold or transferred. The court treated husband’s interest in the trust and the stock in Steve Wilson, Co., as husband’s separate property and excluded them from the property judgment.

On appeal, wife assigns error to those exclusions from the property judgment, arguing that husband failed to rebut the presumption of equal contribution to those assets. She also assigns error to the court’s ruling that husband may delay paying her the value of the Rubber Tree stock, contending that the court’s arrangement leaves the parties financially entangled to an unacceptable degree and, accordingly, that husband should be required to satisfy the judgment immediately. Husband counters that he rebutted the presumption of equal contribution and that the delay in payment for the Rubber Tree stock does not leave the parties unacceptably entangled. He also cross-appeals the amount of spousal support.

We turn first to wife’s argument that the trial court erred in excluding the trust interest and Steve Wilson, Co., stock from the property division. Property division in a marital dissolution is governed by ORS 107.105(1)(f), which requires that a division be “just and proper in all the circumstances” and provides, as relevant:

“The court shall consider the contribution of a spouse as a homemaker as a contribution to the acquisition of marital assets. There is a rebuttable presumption that both spouses have contributed equally to the acquisition of property during the marriage, whether such property is jointly or separately held.”

Property that one spouse acquires by gift or inheritance during the marriage is a “marital asset” subject to the presumption of equal contribution described in ORS 107.105(1)(f). Pierson and Pierson, 294 Or 117, 122, 653 P2d 1258 (1982). That presumption may be overcome if the party challenging the presumption establishes by a preponderance of the evidence that he or she acquired the property “uninfluenced” by the other spouse. Stice and Stice, 308 Or 316, 325-26, 779 P2d 1020 (1989). In determining whether the acquisition of a gift [517]*517or inheritance was uninfluenced by the other spouse, we consider whether the party seeking to rebut the presumption has produced evidence that his or her spouse was not the object of the donor or devisor’s intent and did not otherwise contribute to the acquisition of the gift or inheritance. Jenks and Jenks, 294 Or 236, 241, 656 P2d 286 (1982).

We agree with wife that husband has not presented evidence sufficient to overcome the presumption of equal contribution with regard to the trust interest and the Steve Wilson, Co., stock and that the trial court erred in ruling otherwise.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
964 P.2d 1052, 155 Or. App. 512, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-the-marriage-of-wilson-orctapp-1998.