Dick and Jane are married. Dick buys his friend Bob a lottery ticket as a gift and it hits for a zillion dollhairs. Jane files for divorce and insists that Dick bought said lottery ticket with community property therefore half the lottery winnings is hers.
does she have a case.
How could she possibly? Otherwise every divorced person could go around clawing back half of every gift they ever gave someone.
Huh, I would have said no, but according to this, “Gifts of community property can generally be made only with the consent of both spouses.” So if Dick bought the ticket with community property money without Jane’s consent, perhaps she has a case.
" In 2017, Shelly Sterling, wife of former LA Clippers owner Don Sterling, sued Don’s “friend” V. Stiviano under Fam. Code § 1100(b) to clawback money as well as the house from the third party gift recipient. This case was unpublished Sterling v. Stiviano, 2017 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 4916 * | 2017 WL 3083472"
Holy Crap.
There are a few issues here. Firstly what Dick gave was a ticket not winnings and the value of a ticket is much less than the value of winnings. I would have my doubts that the transaction between Dick and Bob could be retrospectively unwound by reference to the winnings as opposed to the ticket.
Secondly, there is an issue of implied consent. It’s one thing to say “I never gave my husband implied consent to give away our house” and another to say “I never gave my husband consent to give a token gift”. The wife would face some hard questions about whether she had ever used shared money to buy her friends or family normal token gifts without seeking her husband’s permission - unless she could credibly say “no” it’s going to be hard for her to deny that her husband similarly had implied consent to give token gifts to his friend.
Thirdly, referencing the Fam. Code cited by @Bear_Nenno, that concerns a gift of community property “for less than fair and reasonable value”. That is a low bar for a lottery ticket. The husband could argue that the price of friendship is easily sufficient value for the cost of a lottery ticket.
IANAL, but I’d think some consideration would be given to the timing of the gift. For example, if the ticket was given after the filing of divorce, but before settlement, the wife could argue that the husband bought the ticket for himself, but after winning he transferred ownership to his friend in an attempt to hide the windfall asset from his wife.
Lawyers, what say you?
I agree that this could be part of the equation but didn’t want to discombobulate the question by adding it to the OP.
So say Dick bought the ticket after the filing but before any settlement and then gave it to his friend after the ticket won (we know Dick bought the ticket per video cameras at the stop-n-rob he bought it at). If Dick claims he gave his friend the ticket before the drawing does that change Janes claim pro or con?
I think the value of the the ticket ( which depends on the timing of the gift) probably matters more than the timing of when it was bought - if my friend gives me a $2 lottery ticket they just bought, how is that different from giving me $2 which I then use to buy a lottery ticket? It’s not. And if the friend gives me a ticket that just won a million dollars , it’s not any different from him giving me the million dollars. The problem is going to happen when it’s known that my friend bought the ticket but not when he gave it to me. Sure, he’s on video buying it - but he’s most likely not on video giving it to me. Which means he could have given it to me before it was a winner or he could have made a deal with me after he knew it was a winner, so that I would cash it in to keep him from having to split the winnings.
ETA - and when property/income stops being marital property depends on the state. In some states, any thing acquired before the divorce is final is marital property, in others anything acquired after the filing is separate property.
Again, IANAL, but my guess is a ruling on the timing of when the ticket was transferred to the friend (before or after the winning numbers were announced), or if the husband and friend had a payback agreement, would be ruled on by the judge (or jury, if it’s a jury divorce).
If the husband started depositing large amounts of money into his bank accounts (assuming the court issued a subpoena to view bank records), or was seen around town suddenly driving high-priced sports cars, then I’m confident the ruling would be in favor of the wife. The husband would have to live modestly for a long time.
IANAL, but if he gave the ticket after it won then it’s going to be very different.
Even if he claimed that he gave it before the drawing, Jane’s lawyer is going to be all over that won.
Displaimer. All I know about law comes from watching YouTube videos of Soverign Citizens getting their windows smashed.
Bolding mine - what?
It all depends if Friend thinks the jury in Jane v. Friend is going to buy this ridiculous nonsense. I, for one, would need real convincing that this isn’t the childish fraud it appears to be, and would happily give Jane actual damages and a punitive award, leaving Friend with a bill to pay.
A convenience store.
A convenience store. Though not sure if he means rob because they get robbed a lot, especially being the only stores open late at night, or they ‘rob’ their customers via inflated prices
OTOH, I could much sooner believe Hubby Dick gives Friend a $2 ticket than a million dollar ticket with a nudge & wink to be sure to give it back later. Dick really needs to trust that friend a lot.
If Dick never involves Friend he gives wife Jane half the winnings and keeps half for himself no issues. If Dick involves Friend he may end up with an ex-friend and zero dollars. Double or nothing anyone?
This.
That’s been the conventional nickname for those since I was a teen in the 1970s. And due to their propensity to be late night crime scenes, not their prices.
Of course when they first were popularized in the USA in the late 1960s, they were often the only retail of any kind, even gas stations, open after 8pm. The only places still open to rob after 8pm were convenience markets and bars. Times & late-night retailing have changed in the 50+ years since then.
Yeah, that was the colloquial term when I was growing up a bit later as well, which I assumed was a play on the name of a convenience store chain common in Houston in the 1980s. (“Stop & Go”).
They had specific cop-only coffee cups that they gave cops free coffee with, which sort of implies that they got robbed more at times when people would be tired.
I suspect there was a certain amount of vindictiveness for the wife suing in the cited case, if the quotes around “friend” mean what they suggest. I guess too, it depends on the proportion of community property the gift represents.
How vindictive was it, if she sues the side piece but multimillionaire ex-hubby has enough chump chnage to pay the extra, let’s say, $300,000 her half of the house gift represents. All she’s done is hit him up for the money, the other one still has the house and all.
The real revenge comes if it was a significant chunk of the marital property, and the house has to be repossessed and sold; in which case it was no different than any other attempt to hide or sham-dispose of marital property ahead of a divorce.
Timing too is of the essence. If she knew of the gift, for say, a year and said nothing until she caught them in flagrante then there might be an assumption of consent. Or… she thought the other was only living there, and only just discovered the title had been transferred - no consent.
it occurs to me this might be parallel to the $50 Porsche urban legend. (The guy guy runs off with the secretary, then cables his wife to sell his Porsche and wire him the money - so she does.) Or the cement Cadillac - catches hubby cheating and fills his caddy with cement. Presumably she’d be liable for the value of the caddy, against the marital property settlement… Or the guy who chainsaws the entire house in half.
Neither, it’s both.
You haven’t seen very many toxic divorces, have you?
My evil ex-bf would had done that in a heartbeat. All the details would be a hijack to this thread, but suffice it to say, he did much worse that than, for which he was found in contempt of court.