Fredericks v. Fredericks

California Court of Appeal Jan 7, 1991 No. D011223Published

Before: Wiener

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Holding. The court held that the trial court erred in classifying the husband's military pension as quasi-community property because the pension was fully acquired prior to the parties' second marriage, which was the only marriage subject to the California dissolution proceedings.

Issues

Whether a former spouse has a quasi-community property interest in a military pension acquired before the parties' second marriage.
Whether a California court may consider a prior, dissolved marriage when determining the quasi-community property status of assets in a subsequent marriage.

Disposition. reversed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“Section 4803 must be examined in the context of their later marriage, the one that was dissolved here and not on the basis of the marriage that was terminated earlier in Pennsylvania.”

“Because Edmund’s interest in the pension was fully acquired before his 1975 marriage to Treva it was his separate property.”

Opinion

WIENER, Acting P. J.

The question presented in this appeal is whether Treva Ann Fredericks, the former wife of Edmund Otto Fredericks, has a quasi-community property interest in Edmund’s military pension benefits resulting from his service in the United States Armed Forces from June 1949 until December 1971. This relatively simple legal issue is complicated by the facts.

Treva and Edmund married and divorced each other twice. Their first marriage in 1953 and divorce in 1972 were in Pennsylvania. By the time they remarried in Pennsylvania in 1975 Edmund had been receiving his military pension for about three years. In the discussion which follows we explain that even though the parties’ second marriage was dissolved in California the court erred in awarding 41 percent of Edmund’s retirement benefits plus $6,966.31 in back payments to Treva. We reverse the judgment for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Factual and Procedural Background

Edmund and Treva moved to California in 1977 and became domiciled here. Less than a year later Treva petitioned the San Diego Superior Court to dissolve the marriage. A final judgment of dissolution was entered in April 1981.

Neither the family law proceeding in Pennsylvania nor the one here adjudicated Edmund’s military pension. In 1988 Treva filed this action to determine her community property interest in the pension benefits seeking a partition and an accounting. Finding Edmund’s military pension to be quasi-community property the court made the award noted above. This appeal ensued.

[878]

Discussion

Civil Code section 4803

defines quasi-community property in relevant part as: “. . . all real or personal property, wherever situated, heretofore or hereafter acquired ... (a) By either spouse while domiciled elsewhere which would have been community property if the spouse who acquired the property had been domiciled in this state at the time of its acquisition.”

In the interest of brevity we neither recite the legislative history of section 4803 nor analyze the cases leading up to its judicial approval. (See

Fredericks v. Fredericks

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