S.C. v. M.B.
| Decision Date | 17 June 2022 |
| Docket Number | 20-0552 |
| Parties | S.C., Petitioner, v. M.B., Individually and as Next Friend of I.C., Respondent |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Michael D. Anderson, Caleb B. Bulls, Fort Worth, Joanna Raines McKinney, Joseph "Joe" R. Greenhill III, Hugh G. Connor II, John H. Cayce Jr., Fort Worth, for Respondent.
H. Allen Pennington Jr., Matthew David Germany, Thomas M. Michel, Fort Worth, Lauren M. Lockett, for Petitioner.
Don W. Cruse Jr., Austin, for Amicus Curiae Cruse, Donald.
One principal function of a final divorce decree is to divide a couple's community property. Sometimes, however, the decree may not divide all the community property. When that happens, it stops being community property because the marriage has ended. But both spouses continue to own it as tenants in common, just as they could jointly own property with anyone else. Any tenant in common who wishes to divide property may seek a partition under Property Code § 23.001. A Property Code partition presumes an even split; in a divorce, by contrast, a judge uses a "just and right" standard to divide community property. For most of Texas history, if property escaped division in divorce, partitions were the only way that courts could divide it for the former spouses.
But in 1987, the legislature enacted a statute (now codified as Subchapter C of Chapter 9 of the Family Code) that creates a new option for former spouses: using the "just and right" standard even after divorce. This case requires us to decide whether Subchapter C does more than create that new remedy. Does it also make the new remedy the exclusive remedy and vest exclusive jurisdiction over that remedy in the original divorce court?
The answer is no. Absent a clear showing to the contrary, we presume that statutes do not entail such jurisdictional consequences. Express language or necessary implication can overcome that presumption, but neither does so here. The Family Code repeatedly uses unambiguous language like "exclusive jurisdiction"—but not in Subchapter C. Nor does any other text or context warrant converting Subchapter C from an important remedial expansion into a jurisdictional limitation.
When Subchapter C applies and is invoked, however, it provides the rule of decision. If either former spouse prefers the "just and right" standard, Subchapter C supplies it. We hold only that the statutory text does not force former spouses to that choice or impose any jurisdictional restrictions. We therefore affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
The parties in this case divorced in December 2013. S.C. (the husband) and M.B. (the wife) negotiated a mediated settlement agreement, which became an "agreement incident to divorce" that settled various issues, including how to divide community property listed on an inventory prepared by S.C. The divorce court incorporated that agreement into the final divorce decree.
S.C.’s inventory, however, excluded partnership interests in four real-estate deals, which were community property.1 No one alleges anything nefarious about that exclusion. Far from concealing the partnerships, S.C. transparently identified them as incomplete deals that, when completed, would become part of the community estate. The inventory was finalized before the deals closed, so the deals were not added to the inventory. Because the property was left off the inventory, it was also outside the parties’ agreement incident to divorce, and thus was excluded from the final divorce decree.
After the divorce, disputes concerning it arose between the former spouses. M.B. sued S.C. in Tarrant County civil district court, but not the court that had granted the divorce. She alleged various claims that are not before us,2 and eventually asked the court to partition the property represented by the real-estate deals. She invoked the general cause of action for partition provided in Property Code § 23.001.
S.C. filed a plea to the jurisdiction and pointed to Subchapter C of Chapter 9 of the Texas Family Code as support.3 That statute, enacted in 1987, provides an alternative to a traditional partition for former couples who wish to divide marital property that they still jointly own. When Subchapter C applies, "[e]ither former spouse" may bring the cause of action that it creates. Tex. Fam. Code § 9.201(a).4 Subchapter C requires "the court [to] divide the property in a manner that the court deems just and right, having due regard for the rights of each party and any children of the marriage." § 9.203(a). According to S.C., Subchapter C did not merely provide a new remedy, but also eliminated the old remedy of partition. S.C. argued that Subchapter C now provides the exclusive remedy to divide property that went undivided in divorce—and, moreover, it gave the original divorce court exclusive jurisdiction to perform that division.5
The district court agreed with S.C. that it had no jurisdiction over M.B.’s partition action and thus granted S.C.’s plea to the jurisdiction. M.B. moved to certify a permissive interlocutory appeal of that order under Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 51.014(d).6 S.C. did not oppose the certification, which the district court granted and the court of appeals accepted.7 Over Chief Justice Sudderth's dissent, the court reversed, concluding that Subchapter C did not divest the district court of jurisdiction over M.B.’s partition action. 634 S.W.3d 102 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2020). We granted S.C.’s petition for review.
The central issue before us is whether Subchapter C supplements or instead supplants the remedial options available to former spouses who wish to divide property that went undivided in divorce. S.C. seeks reversal on the ground that the legislature has made Subchapter C the exclusive remedy for such former spouses, thus eliminating their access to the preexisting partition remedy, and that the original divorce court is their exclusive forum.
The legislature has broad authority to displace existing remedies and to restrict district courts’ subject-matter jurisdiction. Such limitations need not be express, but "[w]e resist classifying a provision as jurisdictional absent clear legislative intent to that effect." Crosstex Energy Servs., L.P. v. Pro Plus, Inc. , 430 S.W.3d 384, 391 (Tex. 2014). Absent a compelling showing to the contrary, we presume that remedies remain intact and that the jurisdiction of a district court—our state's sole court of general jurisdiction—remains undisturbed. See, e.g. , Tex. Const. art. V, § 8 ; In re Oncor Elec. Delivery Co. , 630 S.W.3d 40, 44 (Tex. 2021). As the U.S. Supreme Court recently put it, "[w]here multiple plausible interpretations exist—only one of which is jurisdictional—it is difficult to make the case that the jurisdictional reading is clear." Boechler, P.C. v. Comm'r , ––– U.S. ––––, 142 S. Ct. 1493, 1498, 212 L.Ed.2d 524 (2022). Even a reading that is Id. at 1499.
The legislature has reaffirmed the reach of district courts’ purview, see Tex. Gov't Code §§ 24.007 – 24.008, including emphasizing that family district courts do "not limit the jurisdiction of other district courts nor relieve them of responsibility for handling cases involving family law matters." Id. § 24.601(c). Against this backdrop, "all claims are presumed to fall within the jurisdiction of the district court unless the Legislature or Congress has provided that they must be heard elsewhere." Dubai Petroleum Co. v. Kazi , 12 S.W.3d 71, 75 (Tex. 2000).
Subchapter C's text does not expressly direct that its remedy be exclusive or vest the original divorce court with exclusive jurisdiction over post-divorce property divisions. To determine whether Subchapter C imposes remedial or jurisdictional exclusivity by implication, we examine Subchapter C's operation in the larger context of how Texas law treats community property that went undivided in a final divorce.
In other words, this case turns purely on statutory construction. We examine the legal background to ascertain what the legislature changed (and left unchanged), assess how Subchapter C affects the legal landscape, and then determine whether and to what extent the new statute abrogated rather than merely supplemented existing law.
We begin with the legal consequences that follow when divorce decrees fail to divide community property. Community property exists solely within a marriage and cannot survive divorce. See Busby v. Busby , 457 S.W.2d 551, 554 (Tex. 1970) ; Cameron v. Cameron , 641 S.W.2d 210, 223 (Tex. 1982) (); accord Schlueter v. Schlueter , 975 S.W.2d 584, 588 (Tex. 1998). Instantly upon divorce, therefore, our law transforms the former spouses into "tenants in common in the property or joint owners thereof, just as if they had never been married." Taylor v. Catalon , 140 Tex. 38, 166 S.W.2d 102, 104 (1942) (citing Kirkwood v. Domnan , 80 Tex. 645, 16 S.W. 428, 429 (1891) ). Terminology about property interests has at times been imprecise, but tenancy in common is the correct characterization of ownership for undivided community property.8 The legislature is free to alter this default rule either in general or for specific types of property.
Allowing community property to become a tenancy in common by default is rarely the best option. Spouses who have chosen to terminate their marriage are unlikely to benefit by becoming tenants in common. But as Subchapter C's very existence confirms, the legislature pragmatically recognizes that, for good or ill, community property sometimes will escape division in divorce. Examples abound from our state's earliest days, when divorce was far rarer...
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