Case Title: Jones v. Phillips

Citation: 

Docket Number: 190643

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2020-12-03T00:00:00Z

Document:
PRESENT:  All the Justices 
 
ANDREA GAIL JONES 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 190643 
 
 
 
             JUSTICE D. ARTHUR KELSEY 
 
   
 
 
 
           
    
          DECEMBER 3, 2020 
TERRY M. PHILLIPS, ET AL. 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF POWHATAN COUNTY 
Paul W. Cella, Judge 
 
In this appeal, we address two questions of first impression in Virginia.  The first is 
whether an insurer’s payments on a fire insurance policy were immune from garnishment as 
“proceeds of the sale or disposition” of property held in trust under former Code § 55-20.2(C), 
recently recodified as Code § 55.1-136(C).1  The second is whether the contractual right under 
the insurance policy to receive fire-loss payments was intangible personal property held by the 
named insured and his wife as a tenancy by the entirety.  Reversing the circuit court, we answer 
both questions in the negative. 
I. 
 
Terry and Cathy Phillips owned their marital residence as tenants by the entirety until 
2010 when they retitled the property in the names of separate, revocable trusts as tenants in 
common.  Cathy Phillips’s trust owns a 99% undivided interest in the property, and Terry 
Phillips’s trust owns a 1% undivided interest.  In February 2018, the residence was severely 
damaged by a fire.  The residence was covered by an insurance policy issued by Chubb & Son, 
Inc. (“Chubb”), which named “Terry M. Phillips” as the policyholder.  See J.A. at 20-95.  Cathy 
Phillips was not specifically named in the policy.  One provision in the policy defined “[y]ou” to 
 
1 In October 2019, Code § 55-20.2 was amended, renumbered, and recodified as Code 
§ 55.1-136, which contains near-identical language as former Code § 55-20.2.  See 2019 Acts ch. 
712, at 1339.  We refer throughout this opinion to the current codification of statutes and have 
noted any technical changes in the statutes when relevant. 
 
2 
 
include Terry Phillips and any “spouse who lives with [him],” id. at 40, and another provision 
stated that “[i]n case of death” Chubb would “cover your spouse, your legal representative or any 
person having proper temporary custody of your property until a legal representative is appointed 
and qualified,” and “any member of your household who is a covered person at the time of 
death.”  Id. at 83. 
Seeking satisfaction of a civil judgment that she had obtained against Terry Phillips, 
Andrea Jones filed this action to garnish insurance payments from Chubb arising out of the fire 
damage to the home owned by the reciprocal trusts.  Terry and Cathy Phillips filed a motion to 
quash the garnishment, arguing that the insurance payments were immune from garnishment 
under Code § 55.1-136(C).  That statute protects “proceeds of the sale or disposition” of property 
that was formerly held as a tenancy by the entirety and then conveyed to separate revocable or 
irrevocable trusts.  See Code § 55.1-136(C).  Terry and Cathy Phillips further argued that 
irrespective of any statutory immunity protecting the reciprocal trusts’ ownership of the property 
subject to a “sale or disposition,” id., the contractual right to the insurance payments constituted 
intangible personal property owned by Terry and Cathy Phillips as tenants by the entirety, and 
thus, these payments could not be seized by a judgment creditor of only one of them. 
Jones argued in response that the insurance payments were not statutorily immune from 
garnishment as “proceeds of the sale or disposition” of trust property under Code § 55.1-136(C) 
because no “sale” or “disposition” had ever occurred.  Jones also contested the alternative 
argument by Terry and Cathy Phillips that they had acquired as tenants by the entirety the 
contractual right under the insurance policy to the fire-damage payments.2 
 
2 “[I]t is not uncommon for married couples,” Jones observed, “to designate investment 
or other asset accounts as ‘tenants by the entirety.’”  J.A. at 140.  “Here, however, there is not 
such [a] designation in the insurance contract between Mr. Phillips and Chubb.”  Id.  Jones also 
 
 
3 
 
Accepting the primary argument by Terry and Cathy Phillips, the circuit court granted the 
motion to quash and dismissed the garnishment proceeding on the ground that Code § 55.1-
136(C) protected the insurance payments from garnishment as “proceeds of the sale or 
disposition” of property owned by the reciprocal trusts.  The court did not address the alternative 
argument asserted by Terry and Cathy Phillips. 
II. 
 
On appeal, Jones argues that the circuit court erroneously held that Code § 55.1-136(C) 
immunized the insurance payments from garnishment on the ground that they were “proceeds of 
the sale or disposition” of the property held in trust.  For the following reasons, we agree. 
A. 
“In Virginia, garnishment is regarded . . . as an independent suit by the judgment-debtor 
in the name of the judgment-creditor against the garnishee.”  Butler v. Butler, 219 Va. 164, 165-
66 (1978); see also Levine’s Loan Off. v. Starke, 140 Va. 712, 714 (1924) (“Garnishment is a 
statutory proceeding to enforce the lien of a writ of fieri facias on a liability of any other person 
than the judgment debtor . . . .”).  Garnishment is “substantially an action at law.”  Lynch v. 
Johnson, 196 Va. 516, 521 (1954).  While “[o]rdinarily, the only adjudicable issue is whether the 
garnishee is liable to the judgment-debtor, and if so, the amount due,” an additional issue may be 
whether the garnishee has immunity from garnishment.  See Butler, 219 Va. at 166. 
Absent an applicable common-law or statutory exemption, see, e.g., Code §§ 8.01-512.4 
and 38.2-3339, insurance payments are not exempt from garnishment.  “An insurance contract to 
cover risks like liability or fire insurance builds no cash value and is payable only upon the 
happening of the named contingency.  If the insurance company’s obligation to distribute the 
 
asserted that Cathy Phillips was not a “named insured,” and the insurance policy covered “many 
relatives, spouses among them, as covered or insured individuals.”  See id. at 138. 
 
4 
 
proceeds becomes fixed and definite, then the company could be summoned as garnishee prior to 
payment to the insured.”  Doug Rendleman, Enforcement of Judgments and Liens in Virginia 
§ 4.8[B], at 4-51 (3d ed. 2014); see also Kent Sinclair & Leigh B. Middleditch, Jr., Virginia Civil 
Procedure § 15.7[C], at 1265 (6th ed. 2014) (observing that “insurance proceeds[] may be 
garnished”). 
B. 
Under the common law, “where a tenancy by the entirety in the fee simple is once created 
the property is completely immune from the claims of creditors against either husband or wife 
alone.”  Vasilion v. Vasilion, 192 Va. 735, 740 (1951).  In 2000, the General Assembly “broke 
new ground” by authorizing “a husband and wife to convey certain tenancy by the entirety real 
estate to ‘their joint revocable or irrevocable trust, or in equal shares to their separate revocable 
or irrevocable trusts’ without losing its tenancy by the entirety status.”  J. Rodney Johnson, Wills, 
Trusts, and Estates, 34 U. Rich. L. Rev. 1069, 1076 (2000) (quoting Code § 55-20.1 (2000)).3 
Recently recodified as Code § 55.1-136(C), the statute extends that immunity to “any 
proceeds of the sale or disposition” of tenancy-by-the-entirety property conveyed to trusts, thus 
granting those proceeds immunity as if they were tenancy-by-the-entirety property.  In this case, 
the parties concede that the residence was not sold.  The only remaining question is whether the 
insurance payments were proceeds of a disposition of the residence. 
In the vocabulary of law, a “disposition” is defined as “[t]he act of transferring 
something to another’s care or possession” or “the relinquishing of property,” Black’s Law 
 
3 This provision was originally codified in 2000 as Code § 55-20.1, but it was amended 
and moved to Code § 55-20.2 in 2001.  See 2001 Acts ch. 718, at 968-69.  In 2019, former Code 
§ 55-20.2 was recodified as Code § 55.1-136.  See supra note 1. 
 
5 
 
Dictionary 592 (11th ed. 2019) (emphasis added),4 and the “[a]ct of disposing; transferring to 
the care or possession of another” or “[t]he parting with, alienation of, or giving up property,” 
Black’s Law Dictionary 471 (6th ed. 1990) (emphasis added).5  By including “disposition” in 
Code § 55.1-136(C), the legislature expanded the immunity from creditors to all forms of 
transferring property outside the context of a voluntary sale.  Such dispositions could include 
foreclosures, judicial sales, condemnations, and any other voluntary or involuntary transfers of 
property. 
Virginia law has never considered an insurance payment for property loss to be an 
implied transfer of anything to the insurer.  As we have said in other contexts, an insurance 
policy is a “personal contract” that “inures to the benefit of the party with whom it is made, and 
indemnifies him against loss; and . . . the amount paid by the company ‘is in no proper or just 
sense the proceeds of the property.’”  Thompson v. Gearheart, 137 Va. 427, 434 (1923) 
(emphasis added) (citation omitted); see also Lynch, 196 Va. at 522; Clements v. Clements, 167 
Va. 223, 233 (1936).  We see no reason to take a different conceptual course in this case. 
That said, we acknowledge that “disposition” is sometimes used in another sense — to 
describe a person’s “temperament or character” or “personal makeup,” Black’s Law Dictionary 
593 (11th ed. 2019).  For example, one might say that an emotionally damaged man has a hot-
headed disposition.  But we would hardly say that a fire-damaged house has a smoldering 
disposition or, for that matter, any “disposition” at all.  A house, in common vernacular, does not 
 
4 See also Black’s Law Dictionary 572 (10th ed. 2014); Black’s Law Dictionary 539 (9th 
ed. 2009); Black’s Law Dictionary 505 (8th ed. 2004); Black’s Law Dictionary 484 (7th ed. 
1999). 
5 See also Black’s Law Dictionary 423 (5th ed. 1979); Black’s Law Dictionary 558 (rev. 
4th ed. 1968). 
 
6 
 
have a good or a bad disposition.  Such an anthropomorphic understanding of “disposition” 
cannot be fairly attributed to the carefully worded text of Code § 55.1-136(C). 
Employing the established legal meaning of “disposition,” we conclude that the 
garnishment immunity provided by Code § 55.1-136(C) does not apply to Chubb’s insurance 
payments.  The reciprocal trusts, as property owners, did not sell or otherwise dispose of the 
property.  Chubb did not acquire any ownership interest (or any legal or equitable interest at all) 
in the fire-damaged house.  No disposition of the house — according to the word’s most 
common legal usage — ever occurred because the fire was not an “act of transferring” the 
property to the insurer or to anyone else.  See Black’s Law Dictionary 592 (11th ed. 2019). 
C. 
 
Our dissenting colleagues offer several procedural and substantive rejoinders that warrant 
a brief response. 
1. 
The dissent’s procedural objections begin with the contention that Jones does not argue 
the transfer definition that we embrace.  See post at 29.  We disagree.  On appeal, Jones contends 
that “insurance proceeds are not a disposition under § 55-20.2” because “the property has been 
neither sold, nor devised, nor given away.”  See Appellant’s Br. at 22 (altering capitalization).  
These are all actions that involve a property transfer of some kind.  Jones adds, “No disposition 
occurred in the instant case; the Phillips[es] retain all the sticks in the [p]roperty’s bundle.”  Id. at 
22.  Her reference to “sticks in the property’s bundle,” of course, refers to individual property 
rights.  See United States v. Craft, 535 U.S. 274, 278 (2002) (noting that “bundle of sticks” is a 
“common idiom describ[ing] property” and refers to “a collection of individual rights”); Cygnus 
Newport-Phase 1B, LLC v. City of Portsmouth, 292 Va. 573, 586 (2016) (referring to the 
“property rights ‘bundle of sticks’” and stating that “no stick was taken out of that bundle”).  
 
7 
 
Equally clear, her reference to the Phillipses “retain[ing] all the sticks,” Appellant’s Br. at 22, 
refers to the fact that Terry and Cathy Phillips did not transfer any of their property rights.  There 
is no basis, therefore, for the dissent’s view that Jones waived the argument that the proper 
definition of “disposition” under Code § 55.1-136(C) involves some form of property transfer. 
 
The dissent also contends that Jones “implicitly asserts” on brief “that the meaning of 
disposition” is ambiguous.  See post at 33.  There is no such implication.  Read most fairly, 
Jones’s argument, see Appellant’s Br. at 16-18, suggests only that Code § 55.1-136 was an 
explicit legislative response to an ambiguous public policy issue concerning how far, if at all, to 
extend the reach of tenancy-by-the-entirety protections.  Conspicuously absent from the explicit 
statutory language, Jones points out, is any reference to the highly ambiguous question whether 
those protections should apply to insurance proceeds.  Counsel for Jones made the same 
assertion in oral argument.  See Oral Argument Audio at 2:05 to 2:18 (“As it properly did in the 
Pitts decision, this Court should defer this question to the legislature to weigh the competing 
public policy issues connected therewith and pass the law best suited to address those different 
interests.”).  We thus do not interpret Jones’s discussion of caselaw as a waiver of her arguments 
that the legislature did not intend to protect insurance payments under Code § 55.1-136, as 
evidenced “through the words used,” see Oral Argument Audio at 13:54 to 14:09, and that the 
term “disposition” requires some type of transfer of “the sticks in the [p]roperty’s bundle,” see 
Appellant’s Br. at 22. 
2. 
Turning to the merits of this dispute, the dissent rejects the act-of-transferring definition 
as overly simplistic, see post at 28 (noting that things should be “as simple as possible, but not 
simpler”), and criticizes our focus on the “vocabulary of law,” see post at 31-33, 40-41.  
Apparently backing the analysis down from “simpler” to merely “simple” and then expanding 
 
8 
 
the linguistic search beyond the vocabulary of law, the dissent contends that the house fire 
constituted a “disposition” defined as a “final settlement or determination.”  See post at 31-32, 
39.  This particular usage of “disposition,” however, has a specific denotation unique to legal 
terms, such as a “court’s disposition of the case,” a judicial “judgment or sentence,” or a 
“termination of a case.”  See Black’s Law Dictionary 592 (11th ed. 2019).  This meaning of the 
term can be found in dozens of Virginia statutes.  Decisionmakers, most notably courts,6 make 
these kinds of “dispositions.”  Burnt houses do not. 
What the dissent appears to be saying is that the insurer settled an insurance claim after 
determining that coverage existed and thus made a “final settlement or determination” — ergo, a 
disposition.  See post at 39.  That interpretation, however, alters the syntax of Code § 55.1-
136(C), which refers to a “disposition of such property,” not a coverage disposition of an 
insurance company.  The insurer did not dispose “of such” fire-damaged house.  Nor did anyone 
else. 
3. 
In a single sentence, the dissent suggests that it is “worth considering” that an early 
edition of Black’s Law Dictionary included “destruction of property” as an alternative definition 
of “disposition.”  See post at 32.  That enticing understatement, however, relies upon the 4th 
edition of Black’s Law Dictionary published in 1957.  After repeating the traditional act-of-
transferring definition, the 4th edition added “destruction of property” as an alternative 
definition.  See Black’s Law Dictionary 558 (rev. 4th ed. 1968).  The only basis identified in 
Black’s Law Dictionary for this alternative definition, however, was Pioneer Cooperage Co. v. 
Commissioner, 53 F.2d 43 (8th Cir. 1931), a tax case addressing whether insect damage to 
 
6 See, e.g., Code §§ 16.1-69.58, 16.1-305.1, 17.1-403, 19.2-303.6, and 19.2-360. 
 
9 
 
timber qualified for a tax deduction.  No court since 1931 has cited Pioneer Cooperage Co. as an 
exemplar use of the term “disposition,” and it must be observed that few legal jurists or scholars 
find the Byzantine use of English words in the Internal Revenue Code to be a reliable guide for 
discovering their plain and ordinary meaning outside of that unique context. 
The dissent’s implicit reliance upon Pioneer Cooperage Co., see post at 32 (quoting the 
4th edition of Black’s Law Dictionary with the citation to Pioneer Cooperage Co. omitted), 
suffers from a more serious weakness.  The editors of the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th 
editions of Black’s Law Dictionary removed the alternative definition of “destruction of 
property” that had been included in the 4th edition.  The fairest inference from this conspicuous 
retraction is that for 40 years, linguistic experts entrusted with the most widely read legal 
dictionary in American law have considered the traditional act-of-transferring definition to be the 
plain meaning of disposition and the destruction-of-property definition to be a curious, narrow, 
or strained meaning of that word.  If so, we agree with them. 
4. 
 
The dissent places a guarded emphasis on our decision in Pitts v. United States, 242 Va. 
254 (1991), in support of its interpretation of disposition in Code § 55.1-136(C).  See post at 35-
38.  Pitts, however, did not attempt to define disposition.  Nor did Pitts mention Code § 55.1-
136(C), which had not yet been enacted.  A single sentence in Pitts merely notes that “some 
courts” outside of Virginia have applied tenancy-by-the-entirety protection to various 
circumstances, including “payments of insurance claims,” Pitts, 242 Va. at 262.  Pitts cites none 
of these foreign cases.  The only citation is to an American Law Reports annotation.  See id. 
(citing Michael A. DiSabatino, Annotation, Proceeds or Derivatives of Real Property Held by 
Entirety as Themselves Held by Entirety, 22 A.L.R. 4th 459 (1983)).  That annotation includes 
“some” cases going one way on the subject and “some” cases going the other way.  Compare 
 
10 
 
DiSabatino, supra, § 14[a], at 518 (“§ 14[a] Insurance payments for injury to realty — Held to be 
owned by entirety”), with id. § 14[b], at 519 (“§ 14[b] Insurance payments for injury to realty — 
Held not to be owned by entirety”).7 
 
The very next sentence in Pitts, moreover, expressly disclaims the some-courts dictum:  
“We confine the reach of our decision to our answer to the question as certified, based upon the 
facts detailed in the order of certification,” Pitts, 242 Va. at 262.  The import of this statement is 
unmistakable.  The precedential “reach of our decision” in Pitts does not extend to any issue 
other than the specific “answer to the question” posed by the federal court’s certification order in 
that case and does not attempt to resolve future cases involving facts not “detailed” in that 
certification order.  See id. 
Pitts addressed what happens to a married couple’s real property held as a tenancy by the 
entirety when they sell it to someone else.  Under Virginia law, Pitts held, the answer was easy:  
Whatever the buyer gives the married couple in return for the transfer of such property (whether 
cash, a check, or a promissory note) retains its character as property held as a tenancy by the 
entirety.  See id. at 261-62.  This holding deserves the protection of stare decisis.  “[W]hen a 
court of last resort has established a precedent, after full deliberation upon the issue by the court, 
 
7 None of the out-of-state cases cited by the dissent address a statutory “sale or 
disposition” provision similar to Code § 55.1-136(C).  Nor do any of these courts mention, much 
less hold, that a “disposition” of property (the sole issue before us on this point) includes 
insurance payments.  See post at 38 (citing Cooper v. Cooper, 284 S.W.2d 617, 620 (Ark. 1955) 
(applying a common law rule in Arkansas applicable to “derivatives of real property”); Regnante 
v. Baldassare, 448 N.E.2d 775, 777-78 (Mass. App. Ct. 1983) (applying a common law rule in 
Massachusetts to proceeds arising from a “destruction” of property); Gaunt v. Shelter Mut. Ins., 
808 S.W.2d 401, 404-05 (Mo. Ct. App. 1991) (applying a common law rule in Missouri to 
proceeds arising out of “damage” to property)).  The dissent also cites McDivitt v. Pymatuning 
Mutual Fire Insurance, 449 A.2d 612, 615-16 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1982), but that case undermines the 
dissent’s position by holding that “the fact that the property owned by the [married couple] was 
held by the entireties [is] of no real significance to the resolution of the issue whether [one 
spouse] may be entitled to one-half of the proceeds from the fire insurance, payable as a result of 
the destruction of the entireties’ property.” 
 
11 
 
the precedent will not be treated lightly or ignored, in the absence of flagrant error or mistake.”  
Selected Risks Ins. v. Dean, 233 Va. 260, 265 (1987) (emphasis added).  The some-courts 
dictum, however, is just that — a mere dictum undeserving of any stare decisis weight. 
 
The dissent seeks to reinforce its use of the Pitts some-courts dictum by suggesting that 
the General Assembly, by enacting the predecessor to Code § 55.1-136(C), “perhaps” codified 
the dictum by “accepting this Court’s invitation to do so.”  See post at 36.  After all, we presume 
that the legislature is “aware of this Court’s precedents” and writes laws “with knowledge of our 
previous decisions in this area of the law.”  See post at 38 (citation omitted).  By taking this 
view, the dissent seems to be applying the legislative-acquiescence doctrine without expressly 
mentioning it by name.  If so, it is being misapplied. 
 
The legislative-acquiescence doctrine presumes that unless a newly enacted statute 
suggests otherwise, the legislature intends the statute to be interpreted consistent with prior 
binding precedent addressing the point being codified.  Even when properly applied, however, 
the presumption is weak.  See United States v. Wells, 519 U.S. 482, 495-96 (1997) (commenting 
that “it is at best treacherous to find in congressional silence alone the adoption of a controlling 
rule of law” (alteration and citation omitted)).  And the doctrine provides no presumption at all 
when improperly applied. 
 
The legislative-acquiescence doctrine presumes acquiescence to judicial “precedents,” 
Lambert v. Sea Oats Condo. Ass’n, 293 Va. 245, 254 (2017), not obiter dicta.  As noted earlier, 
the some-courts dictum in Pitts is a single sentence citing an annotation that surveys the split of 
authority on the issue of insurance proceeds.  That non-precedential remark is immediately 
followed by a disclaimer “confin[ing] the reach of [the Pitts] decision” to the specific question 
presented, which had nothing to do with insurance payments.  See Pitts, 242 Va. at 262.  
Insisting that the legislature has silently agreed with the Pitts some-courts dictum and implicitly 
 
12 
 
codified it in Code § 55.1-136(C) “merely piles one interpretative inference upon another,” 
Loudoun Cnty. v. Richardson, 298 Va. 528, ___, 841 S.E.2d 629, 641 (2020) (Kelsey, J., 
dissenting). 
III. 
 
Offering an alternative argument in support of the circuit court’s judgment, Terry and 
Cathy Phillips contend that the contractual right under the insurance policy to the fire-damage 
payments constitutes intangible personal property owned by them as tenants by the entirety.  
Thus, even if Code § 55.1-136(C) provides no statutory “disposition” immunity from creditors, 
the common-law doctrine of tenancy by the entirety (extended by statutes and caselaw to 
personal property) protects the insurance payments from garnishment by a judgment creditor of 
Terry Phillips.  We disagree. 
A. 
The common law has recognized the tenancy by the entirety for centuries.  See 2 William 
Blackstone, Commentaries *182; 7 Michael Allan Wolf, Powell on Real Property § 52.01[1], at 
52-3 (2020).8  In a long line of cases, we have synthesized this estate’s five essential 
characteristics and defined it as a property interest in which the co-owners hold (i) unity of title, 
(ii) unity of estate, (iii) unity of time, (iv) unity of possession, and (v) unity of marriage.  See 
Evans v. Evans, 290 Va. 176, 183 (2015); Rogers v. Rogers, 257 Va. 323, 326 (1999); Pitts, 242 
Va. at 258-59; Gant v. Gant, 237 Va. 588, 591 (1989); Jones v. Conwell, 227 Va. 176, 181 
(1984).  These unities reflect the unities of a joint tenancy “modified by the common law 
 
8 See also 2 James Kent, Commentaries on American Law 132 (2d ed. 1832); 1 John 
Tayloe Lomax, Digest of the Laws Respecting Real Property 616 (2d ed. 1855).  See generally 
John V. Orth, Tenancy by the Entirety: The Strange Career of the Common-Law Marital Estate, 
1997 BYU L. Rev. 35, 35-40 (1997). 
 
13 
 
principle that husband and wife are but one person.”  1 Raleigh C. Minor & Frederick D.G. 
Ribble, The Law of Real Property § 852, at 1096 (2d ed. 1928); see Jones, 227 Va. at 181. 
The “grand incident” of a joint tenancy, which is also shared by a tenancy by the entirety, 
is the right of survivorship.  See 1 Minor & Ribble, supra, §§ 847, 855, at 1092, 1099.  In the 
context of a tenancy by the entirety, the right of survivorship means that “[u]pon the death of 
either spouse, the whole of the estate by the entireties remains in the survivor.”  Vasilion, 192 
Va. at 740.  The common law presumed that a conveyance to more than one grantee created a 
joint tenancy, except for conveyances to a husband and wife, which created a tenancy by the 
entirety if all of the required unities were present.  See id. at 739; American Nat’l Bank of Wash., 
D.C. v. Taylor, 112 Va. 1, 4 (1911); American Law of Property § 6.6, at 24 (A. James Casner 
ed., 1952); 7 Wolf, supra, § 52.01[2], at 52-3; see also Charles Alfred Graves, Notes on the Law 
of Real Property § 145, at 176 (1912); 4 Kent, supra note 8, at 361; Paul H. Melnick, Forms of 
Holding Title, in 2 Real Estate Transactions in Virginia §§ 8.202, 8.3, at 1066, 1070 (Neil S. 
Kessler & Paul H. Melnick eds., 5th ed. 2019); 1 Minor & Ribble, supra, § 838, at 1085-86.  
Most scholars agree that the early common law required little, if any, express manifestation of 
intent to create a tenancy by the entirety with the right of survivorship when the five unities were 
present.9 
 
9 See Joseph L. Lyle, Jr., Virginia Extends Entireties Doctrine, 20 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 
260, 261-62 (1963) (“Thus it developed [at common law] that virtually any estate created 
between husband and wife, where the four unities were present, resulted in a tenancy by the 
entirety.”); Robert A. Ryland, Tenancy by the Entirety in Virginia, 24 Va. L. Rev. 689, 689 
(1938) (“At common law no expressed intention in a deed or will was necessary to create either 
joint tenancy or tenancy by the entirety.”); Emerson G. Spies, Some Considerations in Conveying 
to Husband and Wife, 34 Va. L. Rev. 480, 482 (1948) (“At common law joint tenancies were 
most favored by the courts and arose presumptively whenever the grantees were not husband and 
wife and the four unities of time, title, interest, and possession were present . . . .”). 
 
14 
 
A long series of legislative enactments, however, have superseded the common law 
presumption favoring the right of survivorship.  “[B]y statute enacted as early as 1787, 
survivorship between joint tenants was abolished.”  Vasilion, 192 Va. at 741 (citation omitted); 
see Pitts, 242 Va. at 259; Allen v. Parkey, 154 Va. 739, 744-45 (1929), adhered to on reh’g, 154 
Va. 739 (1930).10  This statute, however, did not “abolish survivorship between tenants by the 
entirety,” Vasilion, 192 Va. At 741 (citation omitted), because a tenancy by the entirety “is 
conceptually different from a joint tenancy,” Melnick, supra, § 8.3, at 1070.  In a tenancy by the 
entirety, the husband and wife own “a sole, and not a joint-tenancy.  They have no moieties.  
Each holds the entirety.  They are one in law, and their estate one and indivisible.”  Thornton v. 
Thornton, 24 Va. (3 Rand.) 179, 183 (1825) (emphases in original).  A “moiety” in common law 
is a separate interest.  See Black’s Law Dictionary 1024 (11th ed. 2019).  The defining feature of 
a tenancy by the entirety was that, as between husband and wife, there were no moieties.  See 
Thornton, 24 Va. at 183-87.11 
In the mid to late 1800s, the General Assembly enacted several statutes specifically 
addressing tenancies by the entirety.  See Pitts, 242 Va. at 259; Vasilion, 192 Va. at 741-42; 
 
10 With respect to joint tenancies, the abolition of survivorship was modified by a 
statutory exception allowing the right of survivorship when the intent to create it was explicitly 
stated.  See Code 1849, ch. 116, § 19, at 502-03 (current version at Code § 55.1-134); see also 1 
Minor & Ribble, supra, § 848, at 1093. 
11 See also 2 Blackstone, supra, at *182 (“[F]or husband and wife being considered as 
one person in law, they cannot take the estate by moieties, but both are seised of the entirety.”); 2 
Kent, supra note 8, at 132 (“If an estate in land be given to the husband and wife, or a joint 
purchase by them during coverture, they are not properly joint tenants, nor tenants in common, 
for they are but one person in law, and cannot take by moieties.”); 1 Lomax, supra note 8, at 616 
(“As there can be no moieties between husband and wife, they cannot be joint tenants; therefore, 
where an estate is conveyed to a man and his wife, and their heirs, it is not a joint tenancy; for 
joint tenants take by moieties, and are each seised of an undivided moiety of the whole.”). 
 
15 
 
Allen, 154 Va. at 744-45; American Nat’l Bank of Wash., D.C., 112 Va. at 4.12  The statutes 
applied to conveyances to a husband and wife “as to estates of inheritance in 1850, and as to all 
estates, real or personal, by the Code of 1887.”  1 Minor & Ribble, supra, § 855, at 1100.13  
These statutes reversed the common-law presumption that a husband and wife took property as 
one person without separate moieties, as stated in the Code of 1887:  “[I]f hereafter any estate, 
real or personal, be conveyed or devised to a husband and his wife, they shall take and hold the 
same by moieties in like manner as if a distinct moiety had been given to each by a separate 
conveyance,” unless “it manifestly appears from the tenor of the instrument that it was intended 
the part of the one dying should then belong to the other[],” see Code 1887, ch. 107, §§ 2430-
2431, at 593. 
At this point in the statutory evolution of these concepts, “tenancy by entireties [was] 
itself abolished, except where the deed or will manifests an intent that it shall continue.”  Allen, 
154 Va. at 745 (quoting Graves, supra, § 152, at 182).  “That is, after 1888 a tenancy by the 
entirety could not be created in any estate [real or personal] unless survivorship was expressly 
provided for in the instrument of transfer.”  Ritchie, supra note 12, at 615.  The “practical effect 
of the statute” was “to convert the tenancy by entireties into a tenancy in common, destroying 
survivorship.”  1 Minor & Ribble, supra, § 857, at 1102 (emphases in original); see Allen, 154 
 
12 See also Graves, supra, § 152, at 181-82; 1 Minor & Ribble, supra, § 855, at 1100; 
John Ritchie 3d, Tenancies by the Entirety in Real Property with Particular Reference to the Law 
of Virginia, 28 Va. L. Rev. 608, 613-14 (1942); Spies, supra note 9, at 485-86. 
13 Compare Code 1849, ch. 116, § 18, at 502 (“And if hereafter an estate of inheritance 
be conveyed or devised to a husband and his wife, one moiety of such estate shall, on the death 
of either, descend to his or her heirs, subject to debts, curtesy or dower, as the case may be.” 
(emphasis added)), with Code 1887, ch. 107, § 2430, at 593 (“And if hereafter any estate, real or 
personal, be conveyed or devised to a husband and his wife, they shall take and hold the same by 
moieties in like manner as if a distinct moiety had been given to each by a separate conveyance.” 
(emphasis added)). 
 
16 
 
Va. at 745.  “In other words, [the statute] reversed the common law presumption that one 
transferring an estate by deed or will to a husband and wife intended them to be tenants by the 
entirety unless the language of the instrument clearly disclosed a contrary intent.”  Ritchie, supra 
note 12, at 615. 
Later enactments have expanded, reorganized, and recodified these statutes.  The 
statutory presumption against the right of survivorship, however, remains securely intact.  At the 
time of the circuit court’s judgment in this case, former Code §§ 55-20 to 55-21 addressed these 
issues.  As noted earlier, see supra note 1, in 2019 the General Assembly amended, renumbered, 
and recodified these provisions as Code §§ 55.1-134, -135, and -136.  See 2019 Acts ch. 712, at 
1339.  The changes were intended, in relevant part, to “improve the structure and clarity of 
statutes pertaining to real and personal property in the Commonwealth,” see Virginia Code 
Commission, Report on the Revision of Title 55 of the Code of Virginia, S. Doc. No. 5, at v 
(2018).  With respect to the provisions at issue in this case, the Virginia Code Commission made 
only “[t]echnical changes,” see id. at 10-12, for the purpose of making the language “clear, 
consistent, and modern,” see id. at x-xi.  No substantive changes were intended.  For the purpose 
of deciding the present case, therefore, we see no interpretative differences between the statutes 
as they exist today and as they existed at the time the circuit court decided this case. 
Under Code § 55.1-135, a joint tenancy in real or personal property, including “any 
written memorial of a chose in action,” is presumed to be without the right of survivorship unless 
“the expression ‘with survivorship,’ or any equivalent language, is employed in such titling.”  
Unlike a tenancy by the entirety, however, a mere joint tenancy (even one with the right of 
survivorship) does not protect the jointly held property from the creditors of one of the co-
owners.  Any such separate interest can be attached, garnished, and partitioned.  See Jones, 227 
Va. at 181-82; 1 Minor & Ribble, supra, § 854, at 1097-98; see also Timothy H. Guare, Mapping 
 
17 
 
the Plan, in 1 Estate Planning in Virginia § 3.203, at 144 (Marie McKenney Tavernini ed., 5th 
ed. 2016); Melnick, supra, § 8.203, at 1069. 
The language regarding conveyances to a husband and wife, originally enacted in the 
Code of 1887, is now found in Code § 55.1-135.  The statutory presumption against the right of 
survivorship still applies to property that is conveyed jointly in the names of both spouses: 
If any real or personal property is conveyed or devised to spouses, 
they shall take and hold such property by moieties in the same 
manner as if a distinct moiety had been given to each spouse by a 
separate conveyance, unless language as provided in this section or 
in § 55.1-136 is used that designates the tenancy as a joint tenancy 
or a tenancy by the entirety and all requirements for holding 
property by such tenancy are met. 
Code § 55.1-135.14  The “language as provided . . . in § 55.1-136,” id., which is deemed 
sufficient to establish the right-of-survivorship prerequisite to a tenancy by the entirety, is stated 
 
14 The Virginia Code Commission noted that this sentence was relocated to Code § 55.1-
135 “because it is more logically located with other provisions regarding joint ownership.”  See 
Virginia Code Commission, Report on the Revision of Title 55 of the Code of Virginia, S. Doc. 
No. 5, at 11 (2018).  Prior to its relocation in 2019, this provision was found in Code §§ 55-20 
and -21.  The first statute provided: 
When any joint tenant dies, before or after the vesting of the estate, 
whether the estate is real or personal, or whether partition could 
have been compelled or not, his part shall descend to his heirs, or 
pass by devise, or go to his personal representative, subject to 
debts or distribution, as if he had been a tenant in common.  And if 
hereafter any estate, real or personal, is conveyed or devised to a 
husband and his wife, they shall take and hold the same by 
moieties in like manner as if a distinct moiety had been given to 
each by a separate conveyance. 
Code § 55-20 (2018) (emphases added).  The second statute provided: 
Section 55-20 [abolishing any presumption of survivorship] shall 
not apply to any estate which joint tenants have as fiduciaries, nor 
to any real or personal property transferred to persons in their own 
right when it manifestly appears from the tenor of the instrument 
transferring such property or memorializing the existence of a 
chose in action, that it was intended the part of the one dying 
 
 
18 
 
in Code § 55.1-136(A):  “An intent that the part of the one dying should belong to the other shall 
be manifest from a designation of the spouses as ‘tenants by the entireties’ or ‘tenants by the 
entirety.’” 
When property is conveyed to spouses, therefore, Virginia law presumes against a 
tenancy by the entirety unless all required common-law unities exist, and the instrument uses (i) 
the language in Code § 55.1-136 designating the spouses as “tenants by the entireties” or 
“tenants by the entirety” or (ii) the language in Code § 55.1-135, expressly stating “the 
expression ‘with survivorship,’ or similar language” in the instrument.  See Code § 55.1-135.  No 
tenancy by the entirety can be created by an instrument that does not manifestly identify the 
property interest in this manner.  See Allen, 154 Va. at 745 (stating, in explanation of the 
predecessor statute to Code § 55.1-136, that “tenancy by entireties is itself abolished, except 
where the deed or will manifests an intent that it shall continue” (quoting Graves, supra, § 152, 
at 182)).15  See generally Nancy Newton Rogers, Transferring Assets Outside of Probate, in 2 
Estate Planning in Virginia, supra, § 10.402, at 836 (“If no survivorship is specified, a tenancy in 
common results.”). 
 
The right of survivorship must be manifest because it dramatically changes the ordinary 
succession of property upon an owner’s death.  “Upon the death of either spouse the whole of the 
estate by the entireties remains in the survivor,” and thus, “[t]he heirs of the deceased spouse 
inherit no part of the property so held.  The entire estate remains exclusively in the surviving 
 
should then belong to the others. 
Code § 55-21 (2018) (emphases added). 
15 See also 9 Dale M. Cecka, Lawrence D. Diehl, & James R. Cottrell, Virginia Practice 
Series: Family Law § 4.3, at 96 (2020 ed.) (“When property is acquired by a husband and wife, a 
deed or other like instrument must specify that a tenancy by the entirety is intended, or otherwise 
a tenancy in common will be established . . . .”). 
 
19 
 
spouse.”  Vasilion, 192 Va. at 740 (emphasis added); see Johnson v. McCarty, 202 Va. 49, 55-56 
(1960); Smith v. Smith, 200 Va. 77, 81 (1958) (explaining that in a tenancy by the entirety, each 
spouse is “seized with the entire estate, and upon the death of one the survivor takes the whole”); 
Guare, supra, § 3.204, at 144; Melnick, supra, § 8.203, at 1068; 1 Minor & Ribble, supra, 
§§ 847, 854, at 1092, 1098. 
A tenancy by the entirety also has an impact on each spouse’s rights while both are alive.  
Unlike a mere joint tenancy with a right of survivorship, a tenancy by the entirety “may be 
severed only by mutual consent of the spouses or by divorce,” In re Bunker, 312 F.3d 145, 151 
(4th Cir. 2002).  “Although husband and wife acting together may alienate or encumber the 
entireties property, ‘neither spouse can convey [or encumber] any part of the property by his or 
her sole act.’”  Id. (quoting Hausman v. Hausman, 233 Va. 1, 3 (1987)).  And, most importantly 
for the purposes of our case, this unique form of co-ownership provides each spouse with 
protection against the judgment creditors of the other spouse.  Under the common law, “property 
held as tenants by the entireties is exempt from the claims of creditors who do not have joint 
judgments against the husband and wife.”  Rogers, 257 Va. at 326; see also Evans, 290 Va. at 
184; Jones, 227 Va. at 181; Vasilion, 192 Va. at 740; In re Bunker, 312 F.3d at 151-52; Reid v. 
Richardson, 304 F.2d 351, 353 (4th Cir. 1962).16 
B. 
Under the early common law, a tenancy by the entirety protected only real property.  See 
2 American Law of Property, supra, § 6.6, at 30.  In Oliver v. Givens, as a matter of first 
 
16 This case does not present an opportunity to address the efficacy of “an attempt to 
convey property to spouses as joint tenants with the right of survivorship,” Melnick, supra, § 8.3, 
at 1072-73 (suggesting that “[t]he interplay between section 55.1-134(B), allowing survivorship 
estates, and the common law notion of the ‘oneness’ of a married couple would appear to convert 
the tenancy automatically (in Virginia) to a tenancy by the entirety” and noting “[a]n old and 
brief line of cases indicat[ing] this result”). 
 
20 
 
impression, we held that “personal property as well as realty may be held by a husband and wife 
as tenants by the entireties.”  204 Va. 123, 126 (1963).  We applied this principle to “proceeds 
derived from a voluntary sale of real estate held by the entireties,” holding that these proceeds 
“are likewise held by the entireties.”  See id. at 126-27.  We affirmed this holding in Pitts by 
holding that a promissory note given in exchange for the sale of real property also retained the 
tenancy-by-the-entirety status of the underlying property as proceeds of the sale.  See 242 Va. at 
260-61. 
In 1999, the General Assembly enacted a statute confirming that personal property could 
be held as a tenancy by the entirety.  See J. Rodney Johnson, Wills, Trusts, and Estates, 33 U. 
Rich. L. Rev 1075, 1081-82 (1999) (commenting on the enactment of former Code § 55-20.1).  
Personal property can include tangible and intangible property.  In Virginia, “[a] chose in action 
is intangible personal property.”  Huaman v. Aquino, 272 Va. 170, 175 (2006); see also First 
Nat’l Bank of Richmond v. Holland, 99 Va. 495, 503 (1901).  “Any right which has not been 
reduced to possession is a chose in action.”  Holland, 99 Va. at 503.  A contractual right, 
including a right to insurance payments, is a classic example of a chose in action.  See 17 Samuel 
Williston & Richard A. Lord, A Treatise on the Law of Contracts § 49:119, at 106-07 (4th ed. 
2015) (“A contract of insurance is a chose in action.  That is to say, it confers a right to bring a 
legal action to recover a sum of money ex contractu, or from or out of the contract . . . .”).17 
 
17 Pitts held that former Code §§ 55-20 and -21 “were intended to apply to joint tenancies 
and to tenancies by the entireties created by an ‘instrument’ of conveyance or devise” and not by 
promissory notes, which are mere “memorials of a chose in action,” and consequently, “[t]he fact 
that those notes and the deed of trust securing the debt they represent contain no language 
evincing a survivorship intent is wholly immaterial to the question before us.”  Pitts, 242 Va. at 
260.  In 2001, however, the General Assembly amended former Code § 55-21, clarifying that the 
statute applied to “the instrument transferring such property or memorializing the existence of a 
chose in action.”  Code § 55-21 (2001); see J. Rodney Johnson, Wills, Trusts, & Estates, 35 U. 
Rich. L. Rev. 845, 850-51 & n.26 (2001).  The General Assembly similarly clarified former 
 
 
21 
 
C. 
In this case, Terry and Cathy Phillips argue that the insurance policy confirms that they 
collectively owned a contractual right to the insurance payments as tenants by the entirety with 
the common-law right of survivorship.  We disagree. 
1. 
In Virginia, the “‘named insured’ is the policyholder.  An ‘insured’ is simply a party who 
may be covered under the policy.  Not all ‘insureds’ are ‘named insureds.’”  Atkinson v. Penske 
Logistics, LLC, 268 Va. 129, 135 (2004); see also 7A Steven Plitt et al., Couch on Insurance 3d 
§ 110:1, at 110-5 (2013 rev. ed.).  We do not accept the simplistic assertion that “the term 
‘named insured’ [should] be read as though the word ‘named’ is simply an adjective modifying 
the noun ‘insured.’”  Atkinson, 268 Va. at 135.  In property- and casualty-insurance policies, only 
the “present named insured” is the legally recognized “[p]olicyholder.”  See Code § 38.2-602. 
Terry Phillips was the sole policyholder on the Chubb policy and the only named insured.  
On 21 separate occasions, the insurance policy and riders specifically identified him alone as the 
named insured.  See J.A. at 20-23, 26-28, 31-39, 91-95.  The policy and riders nowhere 
mentioned Cathy Phillips by name.18  Cathy Phillips merely appeared, at best, to be an unnamed 
insured “spouse” included in the definition of “[y]ou” in the general provisions of the policy.  
See id. at 40.  While this provision no doubt gave Cathy Phillips a contractual interest in the 
insurance payments, we are skeptical of her claim that this provision, standing alone, created the 
 
Code § 55-20.1, current Code § 55.1-135, by adding the language “written memorial of a chose 
in action.”  See Johnson, supra, at 850-51 & n.26 (2001).  That language has survived in the 
2019 recodifications of Code §§ 55.1-134 and -135. 
18 This fact implicates a question that we need not resolve in this case:  Can an instrument 
create a tenancy by the entirety while wholly omitting the name of one of the spouses?  See, e.g., 
W.W. Allen, Annotation, Estates by Entirety in Personal Property, 64 A.L.R.2d 8, § 27 (1959) 
(discussing whether personal property held in one name only is sufficient to create a tenancy by 
the entirety). 
 
22 
 
requisite common-law unities to form a tenancy by the entirety, which involves taking “one and 
the same interest or estate, arising by one and the same conveyance, commencing at one and the 
same time, and held by one and the same undivided possession.”  1 Minor & Ribble, supra, 
§ 839, at 1086 (defining the four unities); see 41 C.J.S. Husband and Wife § 22 (2020) (stating 
that tenants by the entirety take “identical interests simultaneously by the same instrument and 
with the same right of possession”). 
We need not answer that difficult and nuanced question, however, because a more 
fundamental flaw defeats the tenancy by the entirety claimed in this case.  A tenancy by the 
entirety cannot exist unless the parties manifest some intent to create it.  Disputing this premise, 
Terry and Cathy Phillips argue that Oliver and Pitts stand for the proposition that a manifestation 
of intent is not required for personal property to be held as a tenancy by the entirety.  We 
disagree.  Oliver and Pitts addressed the sale of real property held as a tenancy by the entirety.  
We merely held that the proceeds from the sale of that property retain the preexisting tenancy-
by-the-entirety status of the property sold.  See Pitts, 242 Va. at 261-62; Oliver, 204 Va. at 126-
27.  It did not matter to us in Pitts that the buyer’s promissory notes “contain[ed] no language 
indicating a right of survivorship.”  Pitts, 242 Va. at 256.  The title to the property clearly did — 
it had been conveyed to George and Ellen Pitts “as tenants by the entirety with the right of 
survivorship as at common law.”  Id. at 257 (citation omitted).  We have never held that right-of-
survivorship or tenancy-by-the-entirety language is unnecessary for personal property generally.  
To be sure, doing so would violate the admonition in Pitts to “leave the choice between 
competing public-policy interests to the General Assembly,” id. at 262. 
 
23 
 
2. 
Terry and Cathy Phillips contend that even if some manifestation of intent is required, the 
Chubb insurance policy created a tenancy by the entirety by expressly providing for the right of 
survivorship.  We again disagree. 
The right of survivorship is not simply the right of a surviving joint tenant to retain his or 
her proportionate share after the death of the other tenant.  That truism would be true of 
“survivorship” in a mere tenancy in common.  The “right of survivorship” of a tenancy by the 
entirety means that “[u]pon the death of either spouse the whole of the estate by the entireties 
remains in the survivor.”  Vasilion, 192 Va. at 740; see supra at 18-19.  “This is so not because 
he or she is vested with any new interest therein, but because in the first instance he or she took 
the entirety which, under the common law, was to remain in the survivor.”  Vasilion, 192 Va. at 
740.  This powerful attribute of a tenancy by the entirety means that upon the death of one 
spouse, the other spouse receives everything.  See Guare, supra, § 3.204, at 144; Melnick, supra, 
§ 8.203, at 1068.  The decedent’s estate, his heirs, his children, his creditors — they receive 
nothing because property held in a tenancy by the entirety is a non-probate asset.  See 2 Frank O. 
Brown, Virginia Practice Series: Probate Handbook §§ 1.1, 3.5, at 7, 96 (2019-2020 ed.); Rogers, 
supra, § 10.402, at 835.  “[T]he surviving spouse owns all of the property by operation of law 
and nothing passes to the deceased spouse’s heirs, distributees, or beneficiaries.”  Guare, supra, 
§ 3.204, at 144. 
No provision in the Chubb insurance policy used the expression “tenants by the 
entireties” or “tenants by the entirety,” Code § 55.1-136(A); see Code § 55.1-135.  Nor did any 
provision state that Terry and Cathy Phillips hold whatever interest they may have with the 
“right of survivorship” as at common law.  See Code § 55.1-135.  In other words, no provision of 
this policy can be construed to say that upon the death of the policyholder, the entire insurance 
 
24 
 
payout would go not to the decedent’s estate but solely to his spouse, a mere additional insured.  
The policy implied just the opposite.  It stated: 
In the event of your death, we cover your spouse, your legal 
representative or any person having proper temporary custody of 
your property until a legal representative is appointed and 
qualified, but only with respect to your premises and other 
property covered under the policy at the time of death.  We will 
also cover any member of your household who is a covered person 
at the time of death. 
J.A. at 83. 
This event-of-death provision said nothing more than the insurer’s contractual coverage 
obligations survive the death of one of the contracting parties.  It “is a standard clause in many, if 
not most, contractual instruments used in a host of transactions.”  See Wood v. Martin, 299 Va. 
___, ___, Record No. 190738, slip op. at 12 (October 22, 2020).  In this context, it simply meant 
that the insurer’s contractual duties will continue to inure to the benefit of (i) the decedent’s 
“spouse,” and (ii) any “legal representative . . . appointed and qualified” to represent his estate, 
and (iii) any other “covered person” under the policy.  See J.A. at 83. 
A true right-of-survivorship provision would not (and could not) have said any of this.  It 
would have said either, “upon your death, any payments under this policy shall be paid 
exclusively to your spouse and to no one else,” or “all contractual rights and proceeds belonging 
to you under this policy, upon your death, shall belong exclusively to your spouse.”  Only then 
would “the whole of the estate,” Vasilion, 192 Va. at 740, go exclusively to Cathy Phillips upon 
the death of Terry Phillips.  In short, saying to the named insured, “we cover your spouse if you 
die” is not the same thing as saying “your spouse (and no one else) receives your rights under the 
contract upon your death.”  The Chubb policy contains no language describing a common-law 
right of survivorship. 
 
25 
 
The event-of-death provision, moreover, appeared in the “General Provisions” section of 
the policy, J.A. at 83, and governed all aspects of the policy’s coverage.  It provided contractual 
rights to all “covered person[s],” id., under the policy — which included persons other than 
Terry and Cathy Phillips.  The policy’s “Personal Liability Coverage,” for example, protected the 
named insured, as well as any “family member,” any permitted users of vehicles or watercraft, 
and “any person or organization with respect to their legal responsibility for covered acts or 
omissions” of the named insured or a “family member.”  Id. at 70.  These other “covered” 
persons shared in the non-exclusive contractual rights owed by the insurer separately to all 
insureds, not just Terry and Cathy Phillips.  Nothing in the Chubb insurance policy, therefore, 
attempted to satisfy the common-law unities sufficient to silo within it a tenancy by the entirety 
for Terry and Cathy Phillips. 
IV. 
In sum, the circuit court erred in dismissing the garnishment under Code § 55.1-136(C).  
A disposition involves an “act of transferring something to another’s care or possession” or “the 
relinquishing of property,” Black’s Law Dictionary 592 (11th ed. 2019) (emphasis added).  The 
property in this case was not transferred to the insurer or to anyone else.  There being no 
disposition of the property, Code § 55.1-136(C)’s statutory immunity does not apply.  We also 
reject the alternative argument raised by Terry and Cathy Phillips that they held the contractual 
right to the insurance payments as tenants by the entirety.  Even if they did have the requisite 
common-law unities (a question that we do not resolve), the insurance policy nowhere created a 
contractual right held by them with the common-law right of survivorship, an essential attribute 
of a tenancy by the entirety.  For these reasons, we reverse the judgment dismissing the 
garnishment action and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
Reversed and remanded. 
 
26 
 
 
JUSTICE GOODWYN, with whom JUSTICE MIMS and JUSTICE POWELL join, dissenting. 
My colleagues in the majority hold that insurance payments, owed to a husband and wife 
because of the fire loss of property entitled to immunity under Code § 55.1-136(C)1, are not 
exempt from garnishment by a separate creditor of one of the spouses.  I respectfully disagree. 
I. 
Terry Marshall Phillips (Mr. Phillips) and his wife, Cathy Sue Phillips (Mrs. Phillips), 
originally owned their home and its contents (the Residence) as tenants by the entireties.  In 
2010, they retitled the Residence to their trusts, the Terry Marshall Phillips Revocable Trust and 
the Cathy Sue Phillips Revocable Trust.  Code § 55.1-136(C) gives such trust property the same 
immunity from the claims of the spouses’ separate creditors as the property would have had if it 
continued to be held as tenants by the entireties. 
The Residence was covered by a homeowners insurance policy (the policy) issued by 
Chubb.  The policy states that “[t]his policy is a contract between you and us.”  The policy 
defines “you” as “the person named in the [c]overage [s]ummary, and a spouse who lives with 
that person.”  Mr. Phillips is the person named in the policy’s coverage summary.  It is 
undisputed that at all times relevant to this case, Mrs. Phillips was Mr. Phillips’ spouse and she 
lived with Mr. Phillips.  Thus, “you” is Mr. and Mrs. Phillips.  The policy defines “us” as Chubb.  
The policy requires Chubb to pay Mr. and Mrs. Phillips in the event of physical loss of the 
Residence.  In February 2018, the Residence was lost to fire, and a claim was filed with Chubb. 
 
1 In October 2019, Code § 55-20.2 was amended and reenacted as Code § 55.1-136, 
which contains near-identical language as the former Code § 55-20.2.  2019 Acts ch. 712.  To be 
consistent with the majority, we will also refer to the current statute. 
 
27 
 
Chubb proceeded to pay Mr. and Mrs. Phillips for the damage, destruction, and loss of 
their property.  It sent two checks as partial payment of the Phillipses’ claim.  The checks were 
made payable to Mr. Phillips and Mrs. Phillips.2  Chubb made additional payments on the claim 
by wiring the payments to an account that Mr. and Mrs. Phillips owned as tenants by the 
entireties.  Additional amounts were owed on the claim when, on March 2, 2018, Andrea Gail 
Jones (Ms. Jones), who has a judgment against Mr. Phillips, but not Mrs. Phillips, instituted a 
garnishment action in the Circuit Court of Powhatan County, seeking to garnish any subsequent 
homeowners insurance proceeds Chubb owes to Mr. Phillips.3 
Mr. Phillips and Mrs. Phillips each filed motions to quash and dismiss the garnishment.  
They argued that the homeowners insurance payments were exempt from garnishment because 
Ms. Jones’ judgment lien could not attach to the Residence, and it should follow that it cannot 
attach to any proceeds resulting from the damage, destruction, or loss of the Residence, pursuant 
to Code § 55.1-136(C).  The Phillipses also argued that, regardless of the applicability of Code 
§ 55.1-136(C), the proceeds from the policy are personal property owned by them as tenants by 
the entireties, and as such, are exempt from Ms. Jones’ garnishment for a debt owed solely by 
Mr. Phillips. 
The circuit court entered an order granting the Phillipses’ motions to quash, ruling that 
the insurance payments were proceeds of a disposition and thus exempted from garnishment 
under Code § 55.1-136(C).  It noted that its ruling was consistent with that of other jurisdictions 
that had examined the issue, stating that “cases in other jurisdictions have held that insurance 
 
2 The checks also listed Goodman-Gable Gould Adjusters International as a payee.  The 
Phillipses hired these adjusters to assist them with filing their insurance claim. 
3 In 2013, Ms. Jones prevailed in an unlawful termination claim.  As part of that 
litigation, a federal district court entered a judgment award against Mr. Phillips, who had served 
as chairman and majority shareholder of a corporation that formerly employed Ms. Jones. 
 
28 
 
proceeds that derive from property that was held as tenants by the entirety are likewise deemed 
to be owned as tenants by the entirety.”  See J.A. at 324 (citing Cooper v. Cooper, 284 S.W.2d 
617 (Ark. 1955)). 
This appeal followed. 
II. 
The issue of whether the circuit court erred in its application of Code § 55.1-136(C) is a 
question of statutory interpretation, which is a pure question of law that we review de novo.  JSR 
Mech., Inc. v. Aireco Supply, Inc., 291 Va. 377, 383 (2016).  Although the satisfaction of the 
other requirements of Code § 55.1-136(C) is not disputed, the parties disagree as to whether the 
insurance payments from Chubb are the “proceeds of [a] sale or disposition.”  Code 
§ 55.1-136(C) states, in relevant part: 
[A]ny property of spouses that is held by them as tenants by the entirety and 
conveyed to their joint revocable or irrevocable trusts, or to their separate 
revocable or irrevocable trusts, and any proceeds of the sale or disposition of such 
property, shall have the same immunity from the claims of their separate creditors 
as it would if it had remained a tenancy by the entirety, so long as (i) they remain 
married to each other, (ii) it continues to be held in the trust or trusts, and (iii) it 
continues to be their property, including where both spouses are current 
beneficiaries of one trust that holds the entire property or each spouse is a current 
beneficiary of a separate trust and the two separate trusts together hold the entire 
property, whether or not other persons are also current or future beneficiaries of 
the trust or trusts. 
 
The majority concludes that the homeowners insurance payments were not the proceeds 
of a disposition because a disposition of property requires the act of transferring property.  See 
ante at 5-6.  I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that property can only be disposed of by 
transferring its ownership or possession. 
Quoting an aphorism attributed to Albert Einstein, our Court has previously stated 
“everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”  Levick v. MacDougall, 294 
Va. 283, 291 (2017).  In reaching its conclusion regarding the plain meaning of “disposition,” as 
 
29 
 
the word is used in Code § 55.1-136(C), the majority fails to consider all of the definitions for 
disposition in Black’s Law Dictionary, and it also fails to consider meanings of the word not 
found in the “vocabulary of law.”  Unfortunately, the problematic result of this shortcoming is 
further compounded because consideration of the varying definitions of the word “disposition” 
leads to an understanding of the term’s ambiguity, which needs to be addressed in interpreting its 
meaning in the context of Code § 55.1-136(C). 
The majority appears to resolve this case on the basis of a Black’s Law Dictionary 
definition of disposition that was not argued before the circuit court or this Court, and to reverse 
the circuit court based upon an argument that the circuit court did not have the opportunity to 
consider.  The parties and the circuit court failed to discern any jurisprudential rationale for 
choosing the particular sub-definition from Black’s Law Dictionary found by the majority to be 
definitive.  Perhaps it is because the circuit court and the parties considered other sources in 
addition to Black’s Law Dictionary in their attempts to interpret the meaning of the statutory 
language, but no party to this action has asserted that the resolution of the issue of the meaning 
of disposition as used in Code § 55.1-136(C) was as simple as deferring to a particular Black’s 
Law Dictionary definition– not Ms. Jones, not the Phillipses, and not the circuit court.  In fact, 
the Black’s Law Dictionary definition of disposition is not mentioned at all in any briefing or 
arguments before the circuit court or this Court. 
Regarding Ms. Jones’ argument concerning why the insurance proceeds are not a 
disposition under Code § 55.1-136(C), I believe it is best to directly quote from her brief: 
The trial court’s holding that the proceeds of the Policy was a disposition 
under [the statute] is incorrect.  First, such a finding contradicts the statement of 
[the] Pitts Court, which explicitly chose not to extend [tenancy by the entirety] 
protections to proceeds from a homeowner’s insurance policy.  Second, since the 
holding in Pitts, the Legislature has taken no affirmative action to extend 
protections to homeowner’s insurance contracts. 
 
30 
 
Still, if forced to categorize the payment of proceeds from an insurance 
contract under the current framework, the proceeds are at most a partial 
disposition of the underlying property.  As is the case here, the owners of the real 
property retain it, even when catastrophe strikes. 
As stated above, the Legislature adopted the rule from Oliver extending 
the protection to proceeds from the voluntary sale or disposition.  No disposition 
occurred in the instant case; the Phillips[es] retain all the sticks in the Property’s 
bundle.  They retain ownership of the Property, remain seized of the land, and 
retain the requisite unities, continuing to own the Property as tenants by the 
entireties.  The Property has been neither sold, nor devised, nor given away.  
Given the long history of [tenancy by the entirety], “sale or disposition” could be 
interpreted to apply only to the sale, gift, or devise of the property by the spouses. 
It logically follows that personalty protection could extend to those 
situations in which the entire bundle of sticks was exchanged.  It also follows 
logically that an owner may sell their land and that an author needs a legal-catch-
all phrase for which “disposition” covers the gamut.  Still, [the statute] speaks 
only to the total disposition of the marital asset, which the receipt of proceeds 
from an insurance contract are not. 
 
Brief for Appellant at 22-23. 
 
As noted by Ms. Jones, “sale or disposition” could be interpreted to apply only to the 
sale, gift, or devise of property.  However, we must determine if it should be interpreted that 
way. 
In interpreting a statute, we “apply the plain language of a statute unless the terms are 
ambiguous or applying the plain language would lead to an absurd result.”  Boynton v. Kilgore, 
271 Va. 220, 227 (2006) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).  Statutory language is 
ambiguous if it is subject to more than one reasonable interpretation, “lacks clarity and 
precision,” or is “difficult to comprehend.”  Herndon v. St. Mary’s Hosp. Inc., 266 Va. 472, 475 
(2003).  We also presume that every part of a statute has “some effect and no part will be 
considered meaningless unless absolutely necessary.”  City of Richmond v. Virginia Elec. & 
Power Co., 292 Va. 70, 75 (2016) (quoting Lynchburg Div. of Soc. Servs. v. Cook, 276 Va. 465, 
483 (2008)). 
 
31 
 
Proceeds are defined as “what is produced by or derived from something (as a sale, 
investment, levy, business) by way of total revenue; the total amount brought in” or “the net sum 
received (as for a check, a negotiable note, an insurance policy) after deduction of any discount 
or charges.”  Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1807 (1993).  It is “the value of land, 
goods or investments when converted into money.”  Black’s Law Dictionary 1458 (11th ed. 
2019).  It is undisputed that the insurance payments are not proceeds of a sale; at issue in this 
case is whether the insurance payments are the proceeds of a disposition. 
The majority uses what it terms as a “vocabulary of law” definition of disposition as the 
word’s plain meaning in the statute.  See ante at 4-5.  It indicates that disposition is required to 
be interpreted according to one of its definitions in Black’s Law Dictionary, and only considers 
definitions from that source.  There is no Virginia authority that supports doing so. 
In Black’s Law Dictionary, disposition is defined as: 
1. The act of transferring something to another’s care or possession, esp[ecially] 
by deed or will; the relinquishing of property. 
2. A final settlement or determination. 
3. Temperament or character; personal makeup. 
Black’s Law Dictionary 592 (11th ed. 2019).  The majority examines the definitions from 
Black’s Law Dictionary and correctly determines that the Residence, which was destroyed by 
fire, did not have a person’s “temperament or character,” so the third definition was inapplicable 
in this instance.  See ante at 5-6.  I agree.  However, it did not cite or consider the second 
definition of disposition, which may have some bearing on the meaning of disposition as used in 
the relevant statute.  Instead, the majority concludes that, in the “vocabulary of law,” disposition 
as used in Code § 55.1-136(C) should be defined, essentially, as it is described in the first 
definition in the most current edition of Black’s Law Dictionary, as “[t]he act of transferring 
something to another’s care or possession [especially by deed or will]” or “the relinquishing of 
 
32 
 
property.”  See ante at 4-5 (citing Black’s Law Dictionary 592 (11th ed. 2019), adding emphasis 
on transferring).  Putting aside the majority’s failure to consider the second definition of 
disposition in Black’s Law Dictionary and its unexplained emphasis on the word “transferring” 
in reaching its conclusion concerning the meaning of disposition as used in Code § 55.1-136(C), 
the majority’s analysis also suffers from the fact that Black’s Law Dictionary is but one source to 
consider in attempting to determine the meaning of statutory language used by the General 
Assembly, and needless to say, the law dictionary is not always the best source for determining 
plain meaning. 
Consideration of the definition of a word as found in a common usage dictionary is often 
a worthwhile endeavor in the search for the word’s plain meaning.  In such a dictionary, 
disposition is defined as: “the act or the power of disposing or disposing of or the state of being 
disposed or disposed of; as a: administration, control, management; b: a placing elsewhere, a 
giving over to the care and possession of another or the relinquishing” and “c: an ordering or 
arranging or a state of being ordered or arranged usu[ally] systematically or in an orderly way 
and esp[ecially] as part of a whole.”  Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 654 (1993). 
The majority properly acknowledges that in the past, disposition has also been defined as  
the “[a]ct of disposing; transferring to the care or possession of another” or “[t]he parting with, 
alienation of, or giving up of property.”  See ante at 5 (citing Black’s Law Dictionary 471 (6th 
ed. 1990), adding emphasis to transferring).  It is also worth considering that in an even earlier 
edition of Black’s Law Dictionary, disposition was also defined as “[a] destruction of property.”  
Black’s Law Dictionary 558 (4th ed. 1957) (citations omitted). 
Given the broadly varying definitions of “disposition,” which are discerned upon 
considering various sources and definitions, as did the parties and the circuit court, I believe that 
the meaning of disposition as used in Code § 55.1-136(C) is ambiguous.  As there is no 
 
33 
 
precedent for the adoption of a “vocabulary of law” definition, which is but one of several 
meanings which could be ascribed to the word “disposition,” I disagree with the majority’s 
conclusion that a disposition of property cannot occur without the property being transferred. 
When we find a term to be ambiguous, we resort to rules of statutory construction, which 
can include an analysis of legislative and jurisprudential history.  See Virginia-American Water 
Co. v. Prince William Cty. Serv. Auth., 246 Va. 509, 514 (1993); see also Newberry Station 
Homeowners Ass’n v. Board of Supervisors, 285 Va. 604, 614 (2013) (“When the language of an 
enactment is free from ambiguity, resort to legislative history and extrinsic facts is not 
permitted.”).  Ultimately, “we must apply the interpretation that will carry out the legislative 
intent behind the statute.”  Conyers v. Martial Arts World of Richmond, Inc., 273 Va. 96, 104 
(2007). 
In her brief, Ms. Jones implicitly asserts that the meaning of disposition as used in Code 
§ 55.1-136(C) is ambiguous.  As noted above, in her attempt to discern the meaning of 
disposition as used in the statute, Ms. Jones looks to the historical development of the tenancy by 
the entirety doctrine in Virginia, and concludes that “sale and disposition” as used in Code 
§ 55.1-136(C) “could be interpreted” to apply only to the total voluntary disposition of marital 
assets through the sale, gift, or devise of property by the spouses.  She asserts that the use of the 
word is limited to the total disposition of marital assets because of related tenants by the 
entireties precedent, specifically Oliver v. Givens, 204 Va. 123 (1963) and Pitts v. United States, 
242 Va. 254 (1991). 
Ms. Jones notes that Oliver, in which this Court first recognized that personal property 
could be held as tenants by the entireties, and Pitts, which followed the ruling in Oliver, both 
involved a voluntary, complete exchange of the real property for personalty.  In both cases, our 
Court ruled that the proceeds from the voluntary sale of property owned by spouses as tenants by 
 
34 
 
the entireties are likewise owned and held by them as tenants by the entireties.  See Oliver, 204 
Va. at 126-27; Pitts, 242 Va. at 262.  Ms. Jones claims that when the General Assembly acts, it 
must be presumed to do so with the full knowledge of this Court’s previous decisions, and that 
the General Assembly’s decision not to include the word “partial” or another modifier before 
disposition in Code § 55.1-136(C) means that disposition is limited to voluntary and complete 
dispositions because the voluntary sales of real estate approved by this Court in Pitts and Oliver, 
as producing personal property proceeds held as tenants by the entireties, were voluntary and 
complete dispositions. 
According to Ms. Jones, in this case, no disposition occurred as the term is used in Code 
§ 55.1-136 because the admittedly catastrophic fire was presumably not voluntary, and the 
conceded resulting disposition of the property by fire was only partial, because the Phillipses 
retained some rights in the Residence after the fire.  Ms. Jones avers that because the disposition 
of the Residence was not voluntary or complete, the circuit court erred in ruling that the 
insurance payments were the proceeds of a disposition and that Code § 55.1-136(C) exempted 
the proceeds from garnishment.  I disagree. 
As noted by the majority, tenancy by the entirety is one of the co-tenancies that existed at 
common-law that has survived to modern times.  48A C.J.S. Joint Tenancy § 1 (March 2020 
update).  Because a tenancy by the entirety is “[b]ased on the [common-law] fiction of the unity 
of husband and wife,” property owned by this tenancy is “immune from the claims of creditors 
against either husband or wife alone.”  Vasilion v. Vasilion, 192 Va. 735, 740, 742 (1951). 
Historically, this tenancy, and therefore the protection from separate creditors, only 
applied to real property.  See 2 Raleigh C. Minor, The Law of Real Property §§ 837, 852 
(Frederick D.G. Ribble ed. 1928) (explaining that an estate in joint tenancy exists in land or 
tenements and stating that a tenancy by the entirety is governed by nearly identical principles as 
 
35 
 
joint tenancies); see also Vasilion, 192 Va. at 740 (discussing how the right of a creditor to attach 
land is of no use where the realty is subject to a tenancy by the entirety).  However, decisions of 
this Court and acts by the General Assembly have expanded the application of this form of 
tenancy to include personal property as well. 
In Oliver we determined, as an issue of first impression, that Virginia law allows personal 
property, not just real property, to be held by the entirety.  204 Va. at 126.  We then stated that 
“[i]n those jurisdictions which recognize a tenancy by the entirety in personal property it is 
almost universally held that, in the absence of an agreement or understanding to the contrary, the 
proceeds derived from a voluntary sale of real estate held by the entireties are likewise held by 
the entireties.”  Id. at 126-27.  The Court then ruled in accordance with those referenced cases 
from other jurisdictions and held, as a matter of first impression in Virginia, that the personal 
property proceeds, from the voluntary sale of real property held as tenants by the entireties, are 
also held as tenants by the entireties, absent an agreement or understanding otherwise.  Id. at 127. 
Later, in Pitts, we were asked to determine whether our holding in Oliver applied to 
another type of personal property, payments received on promissory notes exchanged as part of a 
voluntary sale of real estate that was held by the entirety.  242 Va. at 256-57.  We reiterated the 
rule adopted in Oliver, and ruled that the promissory notes were proceeds of the voluntary sale of 
the real estate held by the entirety, and as such, pursuant to our decision in Oliver, the notes and 
the payments on the notes were personal property proceeds held by the entirety.  Id. at 261-62.  
Although the Court acknowledged that other jurisdictions, which recognized that personalty 
could be owned as tenants by the entireties, had extended the Oliver rule to proceeds from other 
types of disposals and conversions of property, including “payments of insurance claims and 
judgments resulting from injury to realty,” the Court declined to extend the rule beyond the facts 
 
36 
 
articulated in Oliver.  Pitts, 242 Va. at 262.  We stated “[w]e leave the choice [of further 
extending the entireties doctrine to other types of proceeds] to the General Assembly.”  Id. 
Perhaps accepting this Court’s invitation to do so, the General Assembly has clearly acted 
to extend the benefits of the entireties doctrine.  The General Assembly has specifically provided 
that “[p]ersonal property may be owned as tenants by the entirety, whether or not the personal 
property represents the proceeds of the sale of real property.”  Code § 55-20.2(B) (2001).  Thus, 
it eliminated the assertion that personal property must be the proceeds of a transfer of real 
property in order to be owned as tenants by the entireties.  The General Assembly also expanded 
the instances in which certain real and personal property, originally held by a husband and wife 
as tenants by the entireties, would retain the same immunity from the claims of separate creditors 
as if it continued to be held by tenancy by the entirety, although it was no longer held as such.  
Id.  Specifically, the General Assembly provided that  
[t]he principal family residence of a husband and wife that [was] held by 
them as tenants by the entireties and conveyed to their joint revocable or 
irrevocable trust, or in equal shares to their separate revocable or 
irrevocable trusts, shall have the same immunity from the claims of their 
separate creditors as it would if it had remained a tenancy by the entirety, 
so long as (i) they remain husband and wife, (ii) it continues to be held in 
the trust or trusts, and (iii) it continues to be their principal family 
residence. 
Id. (emphasis added). 
In 2006, the General Assembly amended that statute to extend the protection afforded by 
Code § 55-20.2(B) to any property formerly owned by a husband and wife as tenants by the 
entireties, instead of just to property that continued to be their principal family residence.  Code 
§ 55-20.2(B) (2006). 
In 2015, the General Assembly amended Code § 55-20.2(B) again, expanding its 
application further by adding the language that is at issue in this case.  See Code § 55-20.2(B) 
 
37 
 
(2015).4  The amendment provided that not only is property held in the trust protected from the 
claims of separate creditors as it would have been if it had remained a tenancy by the entirety, 
but “any proceeds of the sale or disposition of such property” are also entitled to the same 
protection.  Id.  The General Assembly, through this amendment, expressly expanded the type of 
proceeds that are afforded the same protection from creditors as the property from which it is 
derived, beyond the parameters of the rule this Court recognized in Oliver and Pitts, which 
restricted such protection to the proceeds derived from the voluntary sale of real estate. 
In Pitts, we stated 
We are aware that, in several jurisdictions which recognize that personalty 
can be owned as a tenancy by the entirety, the rule that we applied to the 
proceeds of voluntary sales of realty owned by the entireties in Oliver has 
been extended to the proceeds of other kinds of disposal or conversion of 
real estate.  For example, some courts have applied the rule to the 
proceeds of judicial sales, condemnations, and mortgages; to the surplus 
remaining after foreclosure; to payments of insurance claims and damage 
judgments resulting from injury to realty; and to the derivatives of 
proceeds of voluntary sales. 
Pitts, 242 Va. at 262 (internal citation and quotation marks omitted).  We stated that we left the 
choice to the General Assembly to extend the rule articulated in Oliver and Pitts.  Id. 
Through Code § 55.1-136(C),5 the General Assembly expressly extends the rule stated in 
Oliver to “any proceeds of the sale or disposition of such property.”  Note that in Code 
§ 55.1-136(C), unlike in the rule expressed in Oliver, the proceeds immunized from the claims of 
separate creditors of the spouses are not limited to the proceeds which are derived from the 
voluntary sale of real property.  The immunity applies to all proceeds, including those from 
 
4 In 2017, the General Assembly amended the statute to its most recent form before its 
2019 amendment and reenactment as Code § 55.1-136, inserting a new subsection (B) and 
moving the existing subsection (B) to subsection (C).  Code § 55-20.2 (2017). 
5 See supra note 4. 
 
38 
 
personal property, as well as real property and it includes proceeds from involuntary sales as well 
as voluntary sales; it also applies to proceeds from any other type of disposition of real or 
personal property. 
As noted by the circuit court, and alluded to in dicta by our Court in Pitts, other 
jurisdictions which recognize that personal property may be owned by tenants by the entireties, 
have afforded tenants by the entireties protection to insurance proceeds paid to replace or repair 
such property, absent an agreement otherwise.  See Cooper v. Cooper, 284 S.W.2d 617, 620 
(Ark. 1955); Regnante v. Baldassare, 448 N.E.2d 775, 777-78 (Mass. App. Ct. 1983); Gaunt v. 
Shelter Mut. Ins., 808 S.W.2d 401, 404-05 (Mo. Ct. App. 1991); cf. McDivitt v. Pymatuning Mut. 
Fire Ins., 449 A.2d 612, 615-16 (Pa. Super. 1982) (finding based on the facts of the case that 
there was an agreement otherwise). 
“We presume that when the General Assembly enacts legislation, it is aware of this 
Court’s precedents.”  Lambert v. Sea Oats Condo. Ass’n, 293 Va. 245, 254 (2017); Philip Morris 
USA Inc. v. Chesapeake Bay Found., Inc., 273 Va. 564, 576 (2007).  Further, we presume “that 
the legislature has purposefully chosen the precise statutory language, ‘and we are bound by 
those words when we apply the statute.’”  David v. David, 287 Va. 231, 240 (2014) (quoting 
Halifax Corp. v. First Union Nat’l Bank, 262 Va. 91, 100 (2001)). 
The General Assembly’s choice of the word “disposition” as used in Code § 55.1-136(C), 
to extend the application of tenants by the entireties protection against creditors to additional 
types of proceeds from property owned by spouses, was purposeful, deliberate, and with 
knowledge of our previous decisions in this area of the law, and the various meanings of the 
word.  Disposition was used in addition to the word “sale.”  Recognizing that the meaning of 
disposition as used in the statute should not be duplicative of the term “sale,” which in the statute 
is not limited to voluntary sales, indicates that disposition has to mean something other than the 
 
39 
 
transfer of property for a price.  Disposition’s meaning may include a gift of property, as 
mentioned by Ms. Jones, but that is not relevant to the analysis of the present statute because that 
type of disposition would not provide proceeds.  Disposition as used in Code § 55.1-136(C) must 
have been intended to have a broader meaning than that articulated by the majority or Ms. Jones. 
Disposition is a broad term, and it is used in the statute without qualification.  Review of 
the language in Code § 55.1-136, this Court’s relevant precedent, and the numerous legislative 
amendments and enactments passed by the General Assembly on these topics, leads to the 
conclusion that the meaning of disposition as used in Code § 55.1-136(C) is purposefully broad 
and the word is intended to be interpreted as having a broad meaning, the act or power of 
disposing; a disposition concerns the disposal of property.  See Black’s Law Dictionary 592 
(11th ed. 2019); Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 654 (1993).  It can concern a 
final settlement or determination regarding property rights.  See Black’s Law Dictionary 592 
(11th ed. 2019).  It can mean to treat or to handle something with the result of finishing with it.  
See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 654 (1993).  It can be a transfer or loss of 
property.  In other words, a disposition may take many different forms as it relates to the 
property rights to realty and to personalty; it is a catch-all phrase which covers the gamut. 
Property can be disposed of without it being transferred, such as by being discarded or 
destroyed.  See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 654 (1993).  A disposal or 
conversion can be accomplished voluntarily, as through sale, gift, devise, or abandonment of 
property; but it can also be accomplished involuntarily through foreclosure, condemnation, 
destruction, or other means.  A disposition can be of the full disposition of rights to property, but 
it can also be a partial disposition of property or property rights, as through granting a lease on 
the property or an easement, or by conversion, partition, damages, or other means of partial loss 
 
40 
 
or relinquishment of property or its value.  Code § 55.1-136(C) does not limit the type of 
disposition considered for purposes of the statute. 
Through the use of the term “disposition,” Code § 55.1-136(C) protects proceeds derived 
from the disposal of property against the claims of the spouses’ separate creditors, no matter the 
manner in which such disposal results in proceeds that replace the property or value of the 
property which was entitled to immunity from creditors.  Just as creditors are not prejudiced by a 
gift of property that is exempt from their claim, there is no prejudice to creditors in allowing 
proceeds that replace property or loss in value of property that was immune from the claims of a 
spouse’s separate creditors to be immune also.  See Oliver, 204 Va. at 127 (citing Vasilion, 192 
Va. at 740; 1 Garrard Glenn, Fraudulent Conveyances § 172, at 313 (2d ed. 1931); 24 Am. Jur., 
Fraudulent Conveyances, § 109 (1983); 37 C.J.S., Fraudulent Conveyances, §§ 29-a, 30). 
There are no indicia that the General Assembly intended to limit the meaning of 
disposition to instances in which property rights are transferred, as the majority has ruled.  
Nothing in our prior cases or the language of the relevant statute supports limiting the meaning 
of disposition to the particular Black’s Law Dictionary definition that the majority has concluded 
is the proper interpretation of the word.  The majority has adopted an overly restrictive definition 
of the word “disposition.”  See, e.g., Brown v. Commonwealth, 284 Va. 538, 542 (2012) 
(observing that the Court “will not apply an unreasonably restrictive interpretation of [a] statute” 
and that “[t]he plain, obvious, and rational meaning of a statute is to be preferred over any 
curious, narrow, or strained construction” thereof) (citations and internal quotation marks 
omitted). 
The majority’s particularized “vocabulary of law” definition of disposition conflicts with 
the obligation to give the language of the statute its plain meaning, and it is also contrary to the 
apparent intent of the General Assembly.  It is clear from the legislative history of the statutes 
 
41 
 
discussed above that the General Assembly has purposefully decided to expand the protection 
provided to tenancies by the entireties properties to certain trust property, and to all dispositions 
of such properties which result in proceeds.  The majority’s holding, which restricts the 
definition of dispositions to only those dispositions which concern transfers of property is at odds 
with that intent.  The interpretation put forth by the majority allows a married couple protection 
from individual creditors for proceeds from the sale of property held by them under the 
provisions of Code § 55.1-136(C), but allows creditors to attach the proceeds paid to replace the 
property if compensation is paid because of the property’s loss by negligence, calamity, or any 
other manner which is not a transfer.  I do not believe that was the intent of the General 
Assembly. 
According to the majority, the General Assembly by using the word “disposition,” 
intended to protect the proceeds from the transfer of property from a separate creditor, but allow 
that separate creditor to garnish proceeds paid to the spouses for loss of property in instances 
when the property is disposed of, but neither the ownership or the possession of the property is 
transferred.  Under the majority’s view, if a married couple has a piece of expensive equipment, 
that they own as tenants by the entireties and place in a trust pursuant to Code § 55.1-136(C), and 
they subsequently sell that equipment to a neighbor, the proceeds of a sale would be protected 
from garnishment by a creditor of only one of the spouses, because there was a transfer of the 
property from the couple to the neighbor.  However, if that same neighbor destroyed the couple’s 
equipment through an act of negligence, and was required to pay the couple for that property, the 
payments from the neighbor would be subject to a garnishment by a separate creditor of one of 
the spouses because there was no transfer of the property.  The same is true when insurance 
payments are made to the spouses because of loss or damage to trust property subject to 
Code § 55.1-136(C).  I do not believe that such disparate treatment is consistent with the intent 
 
42 
 
expressed by the General Assembly in extending the protections from separate creditors of the 
spouses to all proceeds from the dispositions of such property. 
Considering the statute and the context in which it is used, the meaning of disposition is 
broad and “proceeds of a disposition” includes proceeds of any type of disposition, including the 
proceeds from all of the examples of disposals and conversions mentioned by our Court in Pitts.  
One of those examples was “payments of insurance claims and damage judgments resulting from 
[damage to property].”  See Pitts, 242 Va. at 262 (citing 22 A.L.R. 4th 459 (1983)). 
The payments owed to Mr. and Mrs. Phillips by Chubb were the proceeds of a 
disposition.  In this instance, the Residence was literally disposed of when it was consumed by 
fire; Mr. and Mrs. Phillips lost the Residence due to the fire; the Residence no longer exists.  
Because of a contract of insurance, Chubb was required to pay Mr. Phillips and Mrs. Phillips for 
the value of the property lost to the fire.  The insurance payments by Chubb were contractually 
required proceeds paid because of the involuntary disposition of the Residence.  The checks 
made in payment of the homeowners insurance claim were made payable to both Mr. Phillips 
and Mrs. Phillips and prior insurance payments were wired to an account held by them as tenants 
by the entireties. 
The circuit court did not err in holding that the insurance payments owed to the Phillipses 
were proceeds of a disposition of property they had previously owned as tenants by the entireties 
and that Code § 55.1-136(C) exempted those proceeds from Ms. Jones’ garnishment action.  
Therefore, I would affirm the circuit court’s judgment. 
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.