Opinion ID: 2222284
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Includibility of Rights Acquired After Separation

Text: Section 11(b) of the dissolution act empowers the trial court to dispose of the following three classifications of property of the parties: 1. property owned by either spouse prior to the marriage, 2. property acquired by either spouse in his or her own right after the marriage and prior to final separation, and 3. property acquired by the joint efforts of the parties. The prior to final separation demarcation applies only to property acquired by either spouse in his or her own right. Thus a trial court could distribute property acquired after the filing of the petition for dissolution if acquired by their joint efforts. It may be reasonably argued that in many marriages the joint efforts of both spouses are invested so that one of them may earn pension rights. In the present case, the parties were married over twenty years, during which the husband was employed as a police officer and accumulated his pension eligibility. We find the evidence sufficient to support the conclusion that the husband's police pension rights were acquired by the joint efforts of the parties and therefore not subject to the prior to final separation limitation. The police pension rights were therefore subject to disposition as marital property, notwithstanding that the pension rights did not become marital property under section 2(d) until after the separation. The trial court did not err in its inclusion of the husband's police pension in the dissolution property disposition order.