Collins v. Collins

• Decision Date: 25 May 1988
• Docket Number: No. 2-87-226-CV,2-87-226-CV
• Citation: 752 S.W.2d 636
• Parties: Earldean Martin COLLINS, Independent Executor of the Estate of Walter T. Collins, Appellant, v. Clada C. COLLINS, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 636

752 S.W.2d 636

Earldean Martin COLLINS, Independent Executor of the Estate

of Walter T. Collins, Appellant, v. Clada C. COLLINS, Appellee.

No. 2-87-226-CV.

Court of Appeals of Texas,

Fort Worth.

May 25, 1988.

Rehearing Denied July 21, 1988.

Reynolds Shannon Miller Blinn White & Cook, Kleber C. Miller, Tim G. Sralla, Fort Worth, for appellant.

Acuff & Keis, Stephen R. Alton, R. Brent Keis, Fort Worth, for appellee.

Before FENDER, C.J., and HILL and FARRIS, JJ.

OPINION

HILL, Justice.

Earldean Martin Collins, independent executor of the estate of Walter T. Collins appeals from a summary judgment in which the trial court held that there was no valid marital property agreement between Walter T. Collins, Earldean's deceased father, and Clada Collins, the appellee, Walter's surviving spouse. The court ordered Earldean to amend his Inventory, Appraisement, and List of Claims to show that certain property listed by Earldean as the separate property of Walter was community property. In three points of error, Earldean contends that the trial court erred in granting the summary judgment because the summary judgment evidence shows that Walter and Clada entered into valid agreements partitioning certain community property into the separate property of each, or, alternatively, that a genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether or not they entered into such valid partition agreements.

We affirm, because we find that the summary judgment evidence established that Clada and the deceased did not enter into such an agreement. In reaching this determination we find that a joint income tax return signed by both spouses, in which the income of various assets is listed as separate and community, absent specific language indicating that the document is intended by the parties to constitute an agreement to partition, as a matter of law does not constitute a partition agreement in writing and signed by the parties as required by TEX.FAM.CODE ANN. sec. 5.54 (Vernon Supp.1988).

When Walter and Clada were married, each brought into the marriage a separate business and a significant amount of other separate property. During the marriage the parties kept records in which they characterized the income from their separate property as the separate property of the owner, rather than as community property, and carried forward such a characterization into their joint income tax returns, all of which were signed by both Clada and Walter. Ordinarily, income from separate property is community property.

Earldean contends that the income tax returns in which the income from separate property is characterized as separate rather than community, and which were based on the records kept by the parties, and which are signed by both parties, constitute a partition agreement in writing and signed by both parties as required by section 5.54 of the Texas Family Code.

We disagree, since the tax returns are just that, i.e., tax returns, and are not agreements to partition since they contain no language of agreement to partition. See Sherman v. Johnson, 159 Ohio St. 209, 112 N.E.2d 326, 330 (1953), in which the Ohio Supreme Court held that a document which purported to be a written agreement to make a will did not meet statutory requirements that such an agreement be in writing because of...