Seizer v. Sessions
| Decision Date | 24 July 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 64156-1,64156-1 |
| Citation | 132 Wn.2d 642,940 P.2d 261 |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
| Parties | Bonnie SEIZER, as Guardian for Rosalie Sessions, an incapacitated person, Respondent, v. Don SESSIONS, Personal Representative of the Estate of Elmer Sessions and Barbara Sessions, Petitioners. |
Bullivant, Houser, Bailey, Pendergrass & Hoffman, R. Daniel Lindahl, Portland, OR, Gregory E. Price, Vancouver, for Petitioners.
Morse & Bratt, Gideon D. Caron, Vancouver, for Respondent.
Two women, Rosalie (who resides in Texas) and Barbara (who resides in Washington), claim to be married to deceased lottery winner Elmer Sessions. The issue is whether Texas or Washington law should govern the action brought by Rosalie to recover any community property share she may have in the lottery winnings. The trial court granted Barbara's motion for partial summary judgment, ruling Washington law governs, and dismissing the action because the suit is barred under Washington law. The Court of Appeals reversed, reinstated the action, and held Texas law governs. We reverse the Court of Appeals, but remand to the trial court for further proceedings.
Elmer Sessions is deceased. He died in Washington in August 1991, two years after winning nearly $100,000 a year for 20 years in the Arizona State Lottery.
Elmer Sessions married Rosalie in Houston, Texas, in November 1941. The couple's daughter, Bonnie (Seizer), was born in 1942. In 1954, while the family was living in Hamburg, New York, Rosalie became mentally ill. Elmer helped move Rosalie and Seizer back to Houston, where the two stayed with Rosalie's parents. Elmer then returned to New York, where he was working. He visited Rosalie and Seizer in Houston, but never rejoined them in Texas on a permanent basis. Neither mother nor daughter has had any direct communication with Elmer since approximately 1957, nor, according to Seizer, has either attempted to compel financial support of any kind until the present suit was filed.
Elmer eventually made his home in Vancouver, Washington. Seizer and Rosalie, on the other hand, continued to reside in Texas and, throughout the years, mother and daughter have only rarely spoken of Elmer. In 1987, when Rosalie was declared incompetent by a Texas court, Seizer was named her legal guardian. To Seizer's best knowledge, her mother and father never divorced.
In 1964, Seizer wrote to several county clerks requesting marriage or divorce information regarding her father in an attempt to locate him. She received a reply from Rio Blanco County in Colorado regarding a car registered to her father and Mary Sessions, who lived in Rangely, Colorado. Seizer telephoned the home, spoke with Mary, identified herself as Elmer's daughter, and left a message for her father to call her, which was never answered. Elmer had established a common law marriage with Mary, which lasted 26 years. The couple had four children and were formally divorced in 1982.
Defendant Barbara Sessions met Elmer in 1982. She moved in with Elmer shortly thereafter, and kept a permanent residence with him in Washington until his death in 1991. Barbara claims she and Elmer were married in Tijuana, Mexico in 1984. Barbara also claims she knew nothing of Elmer's marriage to Rosalie, nor of Seizer's existence, until just prior to Elmer's death.
In 1989, Elmer and Barbara were living temporarily in Tucson, Arizona. Either Elmer or Barbara purchased a lottery ticket that turned out to be a winner. Barbara asserts she purchased the winning ticket, and she and Elmer decided to list him as the annuitant and her as the beneficiary. This statement, however, is contested and is contradicted by documentary evidence (regarding times of purchase). On October 2, 1989, Elmer signed an annuity information sheet arising from the September lottery drawing in the amount of $2,576,908.30, which pays $97,922.53 annually. He named Barbara as beneficiary.
Seizer, as guardian for Rosalie Sessions, filed a complaint in Clark County Superior Court on August 26, 1992, seeking Rosalie's community property share of Elmer's lottery winnings. 1 Seizer sought partial summary judgment that Texas law applies. Barbara sought summary judgment dismissing the action on the issue of laches or, in the alternative, applying Washington law to the action. Following a request by the trial court for briefing on RCW 26.16.140, the court held Washington law governs the action, the marital community of Rosalie and Elmer Sessions is defunct under RCW 26.16.140, and Plaintiff has no interest in the lottery winnings. The trial court therefore dismissed the action against Barbara Sessions.
Seizer appealed to the Court of Appeals, arguing Texas law should govern the action or, in the alternative, if Washington law applies, RCW 26.16.140 should not be applied to bar Plaintiff's claims. Barbara answered, arguing there was no conflict of laws, but if the court applied a conflict of laws analysis, Washington law governs and Seizer's claim is barred. The laches argument was not an issue at the appellate level. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding there was a conflict of laws and Texas law should govern. Seizer v. Sessions, 82 Wash.App. 87, 104, 915 P.2d 553 (1996). The court also remanded the factual issues regarding purchase of the lottery ticket. Seizer, 82 Wash.App. at 104, 915 P.2d 553.
When parties dispute choice of law, there must be an actual conflict between the laws or interests of Washington and the laws or interests of another state before Washington courts will engage in a conflict of laws analysis. Burnside v. Simpson Paper Co., 123 Wash.2d 93, 100-01, 864 P.2d 937 (1994). When the result of the issues is different under the law of the two states, there is a "real" conflict. Pacific Gamble Robinson Co. v. Lapp, 95 Wash.2d 341, 344-45, 622 P.2d 850 (1980). The situation where laws or interests of concerned states do not conflict is known as a "false" conflict. Burnside, 123 Wash.2d at 101, 864 P.2d 937. If a false conflict exists, the presumptive local law is applied. Rice v. Dow Chem. Co., 124 Wash.2d 205, 210, 875 P.2d 1213 (1994).
In Washington, when a husband and wife live separate and apart, their marriage may be defunct, and, under RCW 26.16.140, all earnings and accumulations are the acquiring spouse's separate property. The statute contemplates permanent separation of the parties--a defunct marriage. Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Bunt, 110 Wash.2d 368, 372, 754 P.2d 993 (1988). Therefore, in Washington, if the trial court finds the marriage between Elmer and Rosalie defunct, the winnings yielded by the lottery ticket would be Elmer's separate property, which he is free to dispose of as he did in this case, by naming Barbara the beneficiary.
Texas does not have a similar statute. Under Texas law, once a marriage exists, it can be terminated only by death or court decree. Estate of Claveria v. Claveria, 615 S.W.2d 164, 167 (Tex.1981). The result in this case under Texas law would be governed by Caruso v. Lucius, 448 S.W.2d 711, 712 n. 1 (Tex.App.1969), which held:
Under Texas law, where one spouse of a prior marriage enters into a second marriage relationship with an innocent party who has no knowledge of the pre-existing and unterminated marriage, the properties acquired during the second, putative marriage relationship, by the putative spouses, are half owned by the second, putative spouse, and the other one-half of those properties are owned in equal one-quarter parts by the prior spouse and by the twice-married spouse.
Under Texas law, if Rosalie proves her marriage to Elmer was never terminated by divorce, she would recover one-quarter of the lottery winnings.
An actual conflict of laws exists because the result is different under the laws of Washington and Texas. Additionally, the laws of the two states reflect the different interests of Washington and Texas regarding the acquisition of property during a marriage in which the two spouses have lived separately. We also note Sessions does not dispute the fact that a conflict exists.
We must now determine which state's law to apply. In a conflict of laws case, the applicable law is decided by determining which jurisdiction has the "most significant relationship" to a given issue. Burnside, 123 Wash.2d at 100, 864 P.2d 937; Johnson v. Spider Staging Corp., 87 Wash.2d 577, 580, 555 P.2d 997 (1976); Werner v. Werner, 84 Wash.2d 360, 368, 526 P.2d 370 (1974); Baffin Land Corp. v. Monticello Motor Inn, Inc., 70 Wash.2d 893, 899-900, 425 P.2d 623 (1967). This test was developed from the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 6.
Under the Restatement, the general principle which applies to a property case is:
The interests of the parties in a thing are determined, depending upon the circumstances, either by the "law" or by the "local law" of the state which, with respect to the particular issue, has the most significant relationship to the thing and the parties under the principles stated in § 6.
Restatement (Second) of Conflicts of Law § 222.
Section 258 of the Restatement governs property interests in moveables acquired during marriage. "[T]he rule applies to chattels, to rights embodied in a document and to rights that are not embodied in a document." Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 258, cmt. a. We previously applied this section of the Restatement in determining the character of a husband's pension when the couple had lived in both community property states and noncommunity property states. In re Marriage of Landry, 103 Wash.2d 807, 810-11, 699 P.2d 214 (1985).
Section 258 provides:
(1) The interest of a spouse in a movable acquired by the other spouse during the marriage is determined by the local law of the state which, with respect to the particular issue, has the most significant relationship to the spouses and the movable under the principles stated in § 6.
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