Marriage of Simonis
Annotate this CaseJennifer and Alan Simonis were married for 27 years and separated in September 2015. While married the parties ran a farm where they grew crops, and they raised cattle. Jennifer bore some recordkeeping responsibility for the farm operations during the parties’ initial period of separation, and Alan maintained Jennifer was in control of accounting for marital assets for at least a month after the parties separated. But other than that early period of control over accounting records, between the date of separation and the date of trial on reserved issues to divide the community estate approximately five years later, Alan retained control of the three main non-real estate assets that belonged to the community: cash on hand, crop income from 2015 crops, and a herd of cattle ("TCB Herd"). In the time during which Alan controlled the assets, he commingled the cattle, cash, and income with his separate property. Alan also made payments on various community debts using commingled funds. At trial in 2020, the trial court looked to long-established precedent regarding the tracing of commingled assets during marriage, found that Alan had failed to meet his burden to trace his separate property interest in the cattle or his use of separate property to pay down community debts, and divided the bulk of the community estate accordingly. The court made no specific order regarding the value of the cash on hand or the 2015 crop income, but it noted the court’s continuing jurisdiction over unadjudicated assets and liabilities under Family Code section 2556 when ruling on posttrial motions. Alan appealed the trial court's judgment, arguing the trial court incorrectly interpreted and applied case law regarding how to characterize the separate and community interests in commingled assets and payments on community debts. Additionally, Alan argued the trial court ought to have determined the value of the non-real estate community assets at the date of separation. Finding no reversible error in the trial court's judgment, the Court of Appeal affirmed.
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