Family Law

1
Family Law

• Breakup of marriage, property and custody

2
What is Family Law?

• An area of law dealing with family and domestic
  issues, like
• Marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships
• Domestic violence and abuse
• Adoption, surrogacy, legitimacy
• Termination of family relationships (divorce,
  annulment, property settlements, alimony, child
  support, custody, visitation rights)

3
Dissolution of Marriage

• In Washington, divorce is called dissolution of
  marriage
• The governing law is RCW 26.09
• Washington is a no-fault divorce state
• This means you do not have to show anything more
  than irreconcilable differences

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Ending the marriage

• File dissolution petition with the court
• Wait 90 days
• Get a final dissolution decree (3 ways)
• Both parties agree to it
• Both argue in front of the judge, who enters a
  judgment
• Default decree entered (no one argues)

5
Dissolution Decree

• Ends the marriage
• Decides the following matters
• marital property and debt allocation
• Custody rights
• Child support
• Spousal maintenance
• Restraining orders

6
The Property

• Dividing up the marital property, (i.e. who gets
  what)

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What is marital property?

• Marital Property is property of the marriage,
  often it includes
• Real property houses and land
• Personal property boats, cars, art
• Financial assets cash, stocks, bonds
• Future interests pensions, retirement funds
• Contractual rights
• Question Who does this belong to when the
  marriage ends?
• Answer It depends

8
Community Property

• In WA, most of the assets are Community Property
• Each spouse is regarded as contributing to the
  wellbeing of the community and equally shares in
  the financial wellbeing of the marriage
• Each spouse has a ½ interest in any property
  acquired by the marital community
• 9 community property states
• Washington
• California
• Texas
• Louisiana
• New Mexico
• Wisconsin
• Idaho
• Arizona
• Nevada
• Alaska (can choose community property)

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Community Property

• Most money coming into the marriage is community
  property, this includes
• salaries and compensation
• Windfalls
• Sale of community property
• Interest and rent income

10
Wifes Salary
Husbands Labor
Husbands Salary
Wifes Labor

11
Community and Separate Property

• Strong presumption that property acquired during
  marriage is community property
• However, some property is SEPARATE property
• This is property that belongs to a spouse
  individually

12
Separate Property

• Property held by a person before the marriage
• Property received as a gift or inheritance by a
  person
• Rents and profits from separate property remain
  separate property

13
Mixed Property

• Of course, property will get mixed together, and
  this becomes mixed property
• For example, a person may buy a house, then get
  married, and the make payments after the marriage
  using income from their salary (which is now
  community property).
• Usually a court will proportion this property
• Basically divide it up according to whether the
  money used to pay for it was community or separate

14
Mixed Property

• Mixed property can cause funny things to happen
• For example, a husband is injured in car accident
  and wins an award of 200,000 dollars (100,000
  for lost wages, and 100,000 for pain and
  suffering)
• The 100,000 for lost wages is community property
• The 100,000 for pain and suffering is the
  separate property of the husband

15
Property and Dissolution

• When the marriage ends, each spouse gets
• Separate property
• ½ community property
• However, judges have DISCRETION, and can
  equitably distribute property, giving one spouse
  more or less than ½ community property
• For example, if one spouse never worked and
  gambled away all the money, the court may award
  that spouse less than ½ community property

16
Community Property and Unmarried Couples

• In WA, we allow for committed intimate
  relationships
• Relationship must be stable and marital-like,
  court will look at
• Duration of relationship
• Cohabitation
• Pooling of resources
• Intent of parties
• Purpose of the relationship
• Court will use equitable powers to distribute
  property based on community property principles

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Unmarried couples

• However, Washington does not recognize common law
  marriages,
• (unmarried couple living together like a married
  couple, same as a committed intimate
  relationship)
• So when distributing property at the end of the
  relationship, the court will use of the community
  property principles
• BUT, parties do not get any other marital rights
  (like rights to retirement funds, pensions or
  health care)
• This is to promote public policy of encouraging
  people to marry

18
The Kids

• What happens to the kids?

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Custody

• In any proceeding between parents the best
  interests of the child shall be the standard by
  which the court determines and allocates the
  parties' parental responsibilities. RCW
  26.09.002
• This means that a court will consider the best
  interests of the child in deciding custody rights

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What are best interests?

• The best interests of the child are served by a
  parenting arrangement that best maintains the
  childs
• Emotional growth
• Health
• Stability
• Physical care

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What are best interests?

• The best interest also means maintaining the
  existing interaction between parent and child as
  much as possible
• The parent child relationship is altered only
• to extent necessitated by the changed
  relationship of the parents
• or to protect the child from physical, mental, or
  emotional harm
• RCW 26.09.002

22
Who are the parents?

• Only legal parents have custody rights
• Legal parents are
• Natural parents
• Adoptive parents