DeRuwe v. DeRuwe, 38947

• Decision Date: 02 November 1967
• Docket Number: No. 38947,38947
• Citation: 72 Wn.2d 404,433 P.2d 209
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: Mervin DeRUWE, Respondent, v. Elaine DeRUWE, Appellant.

Page 404

72 Wn.2d 404

433 P.2d 209

Mervin DeRUWE, Respondent, v. Elaine DeRUWE, Appellant.

No. 38947.

Supreme Court of Washington, Department 1.

Nov. 2, 1967.

Murray A. Taggart, Walla Walla, for appellant.

Vaughn Hubbard, Waitsburg, for respondent.

HALE, Judge.

The DeRuwe divorce gave the trial court several complicated problems in property division. In only two respects do we believe we have found a better solution.

Plaintiff Mervin DeRuwe and Elaine married in 1942. The husband, at the time, had property of between $29,000 and $36,000, consisting largely of interests in ranch and farm lands, livestock, and farming and ranch equipment. During their marriage, the husband inherited $13,000 which he commingled with their growing community property. Elaine brought little or no property to the marriage. Mervin DeRuwe started this divorce and Elaine cross-complained.

By the time of the decree, they had 5 children ranging in age from 7 to 22 years and a son of the husband by a previous marriage whom Elaine adopted. The adopted son was self-supporting. Of the 6 children, the court left the 3 youngest in the care, custody and control of their mother. Timmie, an older boy about 20 years old and in college, stayed on with his father where he could work with his two older brothers on the ranches and farms when not in school.

The husband, 50 years of age at the time of the decree, had completed only 8 years of schooling but had achieved success as a sheep rancher and cattleman. His operations, despite substantial losses incurred during 3 years of marriage, showed annual net incomes otherwise fluctuating irregularly from $2,000 in 1961, to a high of $41,000 in 1948. The total growth in gross value of the community properties, however, reflected the husband's success as a stockman and farmer, for during the marriage it had increased to more than a million dollars. This gross value included, of course, the amount of property brought into the marriage by the husband and the $13,000 inherited by him.

The learned trial judge, after comprehensive analysis of the various ranches, livestock, equipment and property, made a specific finding that 'The net estate of the parties is approximately $865,000.00.' Fortifying this finding of $865,000 net value was the fact that, shortly before the commencement of the action, the Travelers, Insurance Company had loaned the parties $375,000 on a mortgage of their various properties. Their properties carried an additional mortgage loan from the Production Credit Administration of about $121,000. ¹

During an earlier separation, the parties had entered into a property settlement agreement dated December 18, 1962, but modified this by a reconciliation agreement January 6, 1964, and the court took cognizance of these agreements in making a division of the community property in the instant case. After considering the husband's initial separate property of $29,000 to $36,000, plus his $13,000 inheritance, the court found:

Both the husband and the wife throughout the marriage have worked hard and lived frugally; their community effort has contributed substantially to the increase in the amount and value of their holdings; there has been a substantial increase in the value of the properties owned by the husband at the time of marriage; although each has substantially contributed, it is impossible to determine with any degree of accuracy in what proportion the holdings of the husband prior to marriage and the efforts of the community since marriage contributed to the $865,000.00 present net worth of the parties.

Finding both parties at fault, the trial court granted each a divorce from the other. It placed the 3 youngest children in the wife's custody and ordered the plaintiff husband to pay $100 per month for the support of each child.

The decree awarded the wife $50,000 in cash and an additional $15,000 payable in 3 years with interest at 6 per cent annually, and order the plaintiff to pay the defendant $5,000 per year alimony until the further order of the court, the alimony to be secured by a $225,000 lien upon the husband's property. In addition, the wife was to retain all of the parties' equity in a residence she was buying in Lewiston, Idaho. All of the other community property, farm land, ranch land, equipment, supplies and livestock, was awarded to the husband; the parties were to pay their respective attorney's fees and costs. Except for the unpaid purchase price in the defendant's Idaho residence, the plaintiff husband was ordered to assume all existing community debts.

Challenging the adequacy of the property award, the $5,000 annual alimony and the $100 support for each minor child, defendant wife brings this appeal. Two of these items may be quickly disposed of. In fixing the child support and alimony and dividing the property, the court gave great consideration to the fact that the older children would find employment in and participate in operating the plaintiff's farms and ranches. Understandably, the court was reluctant to break up these properties, for their successful operation appeared dependent on the plaintiff's continued management and ownership of them; the court sought to secure the wife in her alimony by a lien, leaving the husband in ownership and control of the farm-ranch operations.

Indeed, the court believed that the wife's financial security under the decree was so largely dependent on the plaintiff's skill and industry that it based its division of property on this idea. Accordingly, when we consider the annual income derived from plaintiff's ranching, farm and livestock activities, we think that the...