Merrill v. Merrill, HH-332
| Decision Date | 28 April 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. HH-332,HH-332 |
| Citation | 357 So.2d 792 |
| Parties | Lucille Harrell Rupert MERRILL, Appellant, v. Lloyd R. MERRILL, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Ronald A. Nour, Daytona Beach, for appellant.
Arthur H. Gehris, III, of Elliott, Tindell & Gehris, Daytona Beach, for appellee.
The wife appeals from a marriage dissolution judgment which found that the husband has a special equity in certain real and personal property which was wholly acquired and paid for by the husband long before the seven-month marriage, and which during the marriage he transferred into the joint names of his wife and himself. The wife testified that the transfers during coverture were intended by the husband as a gift to the wife; but he testified, apparently with telling effect on the chancellor, that no gift was intended and that the transfers were made solely for survivorship purposes during coverture. We cannot read Ball v. Ball, 335 So.2d 5, 7 (Fla.1976), as holding that a word or two of testimony by the recipient spouse, to the effect that the other intended a gift, obliterates the special equity resulting from an unrebutted showing that the grantor spouse acquired the property from sources entirely independent of the marriage. Such a reading of Ball would manipulate its doctrines mechanically if not magically. The question of donative intent is one of a preponderance of the credible evidence; and that question is for the chancellor, not for us.
We recognize the seeming inequity of restoring the husband's separate property to him and not somehow recompensing the wife for her loss, upon entering the marriage, of a substantial pension which was paid to her as widow of her former husband. Yet that appealing factor cannot be given effect to destroy the husband's special equity in previously acquired property. Even though the wife's sacrifice of her pension was a contribution to the marriage, it was not a contribution of material resources to the marriage, nor was it a contribution toward the husband's acquisition of the subject property. See Ball, 335 So.2d at 7, n. 7.
We recognize also that the Supreme Court in Ball limited its decision to questions of real property, 335 So.2d at 8, n. 11, and that we are here concerned with common stock as well as with land. We find no basis for treating personal property differently.
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Marsh v. Marsh, 80-451
...payments and property taxes. The husband testified that the wife had intended a gift to him. As was held in Merrill v. Merrill, 357 So.2d 792, 793 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978), the Ball decision should not be read "as holding that a word or two of testimony by the recipient spouse, to the effect tha......
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Sanford v. Sanford
...by a showing that a gift was intended. This is an issue of fact. Cf. Laws v. Laws, 364 So.2d 798 (Fla. 4th DCA 1978); Merrill v. Merrill, 357 So.2d 792 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978); Ball, 335 So.2d at 5. See also Ward v. Ward, 502 So.2d 477 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987); Brown v. Brown, 429 So.2d 846 (Fla. 4th......
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Portuondo v. Portuondo
...to both the husband and the wife. "The question of donative intent is one of a preponderance of credible evidence". Merrill v. Merrill, 357 So.2d 792, 793 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978). Therefore, if there is no credible evidence of such intent below, the finding of the trial judge as to donative int......
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Duncan v. Duncan
...(Fla.1958). See, e. g., Ball v. Ball, 335 So.2d 5 (Fla.1976) (property acquired with inherited funds of one spouse); Merrill v. Merrill, 357 So.2d 792 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978) (one spouse entered the marriage with possession of realty and personalty); and Green v. Green, 228 So.2d 112 (Fla. 3d D......