Opinion ID: $opinion_id
Heading Depth: 1.0
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: $label

Text: This would appear to foreclose the issue for the present cases. Nevertheless, because respondents and the Court of Appeals stress the evanescent nature of the wife's interest in community property in Louisiana, a review of the pertinent Louisiana statutes and decisions is perhaps in order.

Every marriage contracted in Louisiana "superinduces of right partnership or community of acquets or gains, if there be no stipulation to the contrary." La. Civ. Code Ann., Art. 2399 (1971). "This partnership or community consists of the profits of all the effects of which the husband has the administration and enjoyment, either of right or in fact, of the produce of the reciprocal industry and labor of both husband and wife, and of the estate which they may acquire during the marriage, either by donations made jointly to them both, or by purchase, or in any other similar way, even although the purchase be only in the name of one of the two and not of both, because in that case the period of time when the purchase is made is alone attended to, and not the person who made the purchase. . . ." Art. 2402. The debts contracted during the marriage "enter into the partnership or community of gains, and must be acquitted out of the common fund . . . ." Art. 2403. "The husband is the head and master of the partnership or community of gains; he administers its effects, disposes of the revenues which they produce, and may alienate them by an onerous title, without the consent and permission of his wife." Also "he may dispose of the movable effects by a gratuitous and particular title, to the benefit of all persons." Art. 2404. The same article, however, denies him the power of conveyance, "by a gratuitous title," of community immovables, or of the whole or a quota of the movables, unless for the children; and if the husband has sold or disposed of the common property in fraud of the wife, she has an action against her husband's heirs. At the dissolution of a marriage "all effects which both husband and wife reciprocally possess, are presumed common effects or gains . . . ." Art. 2405. At dissolution, "The effects which compose the partnership or community of gains, are divided into two equal portions between the husband and the wife, or between their heirs . . . ." Art. 2406. "It is understood that, in the partition of the effects of the partnership or community of gains, both husband and wife are to be equally liable for their share of the debts contracted during the marriage, and not acquitted at the time of its dissolution." Art. 2409. Then the wife and her heirs or assigns may "exonerate themselves from the debts contracted during the marriage, by renouncing the partnership or community of gains." Art. 2410. And the wife "who renounces, loses every sort of right to the effects of the partnership or community of gains" except that "she takes back all her effects, whether dotal or extradotal." Art. 2411.

The Louisiana court has described and forcefully stated the nature of the community interest. In Phillips v. Phillips, 160 La. 813, 825-826, 107 So. 584, 588 (1926), it was said:

"The wife's half interest in the community property is not a mere expectancy during the marriage; it is not transmitted to her by or in consequence of a dissolution of the community. The title for half of the community property is vested in the wife the moment it is acquired by the community or by the spouses jointly, even though it be acquired in the name of only one of them. . . . There are loose expressions, appearing in some of the opinions rendered by this court, to the effect that the wife's half interest in the community property is only an expectancy, or a residuary interest, until the community is dissolved and liquidated. But that is contrary to the provisions of the Civil Code . . . and is contrary to the rule announced in every decision of this court since the error was first committed . . . ."
Later, in Succession of Wiener, 203 La. 649, 14 So. 2d 475 (1943), a state inheritance tax case, the court, after referring to Arts. 2399 and 2402 of the Civil Code, said:

"That this community is a partnership in which the husband and wife own equal shares, their title thereto vesting at the very instant such property is acquired, is well settled in this state . . . ."
"The conclusion we have reached in this case is in keeping with the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Bender v. Pfaff, supra, where that court recognized that under the law of Louisiana the wife is not only vested with the ownership of half of the community property from the moment it is acquired, but is likewise the owner of half of the community income. . . ." 203 La., at 657 and 662, 14 So. 2d, at 477 and 479.
After reviewing joint tenancy and tenancy by the entirety known to the common law, the court observed:

"In Louisiana, the situation is entirely different, for here the civil law prevails, and the theory of the civil law is that the acquisition of all property during the marriage is due to the joint or common efforts, labor, industry, economy, and sacrifices of the husband and wife; in her station the wife is just as much an agency in acquiring this property as is her husband. In Louisiana, therefore, the wife's rights in and to the community property do not rest upon the mere gratuity of her husband; they are just as great as his and are entitled to equal dignity. . . . She is the half-partner and owner of all acquisitions made during the existence of the community, whether they be property or income. . . .
"It is true that in weaving this harmonious commercial partnership around the intimate and sacred marital relationship, the framers of our law and its codifiers saw fit, in their wisdom, to place the husband at the head of the partnership, but this did not in any way affect the status of the property or the wife's ownership of her half thereof. . . . And the husband was made the managing partner of the community and charged with the administration of its effects, as well as with the alienation of its effects and revenues by onerous title, because he was deemed the best qualified to act." 203 La., at 665-667, 14 So. 2d, at 480-481.
The court then outlined in detail the various protections afforded by Louisiana law to the wife and concluded:

"It is obvious, therefore, that the wife's interest in the community property in Louisiana does not spring from any fiction of the law or from any gift or act of generosity on the part of her husband but, instead, from an express legal contract of partnership entered into at the time of the marriage. There is no substantial difference between her interest therein and the interest of an ordinary member of a limited or ordinary partnership, the control and management of whose affairs has, by agreement, been entrusted to a managing partner. The only real difference is that the limitations placed on the managing partner in the community partnership are fixed by law, while those placed on the managing partner in an ordinary or limited partnership are fixed by convention or contract." 203 La., at 669, 14 So. 2d, at 481-482.
The husband thus is the manager and agent of the Louisiana community, but his powers as manager do not serve to defeat the ownership rights of the wife.

These principles repeatedly have found expression in Louisiana cases. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Green, 252 La. 227, 232-233, 210 So. 2d 328, 330 (1968); Gebbia v. City of New Orleans, 249 La. 409, 415-416, 187 So. 2d 423, 425 (1966); Azar v. Azar, 239 La. 941, 946, 120 So. 2d 485, 487 (1960); Messersmith v. Messersmith, 229 La. 495, 507, 86 So. 2d 169, 173 (1956); Dixon v. Dixon's Executors, 4 La. 188 (1932).

This Court recognized these Louisiana community property principles in the Wiener estate's federal estate tax litigation. Fernandez v. Wiener, 326 U.S. 340 (1945). There the inclusion in the decedent's gross estate of the entire community property was upheld for purposes of the federal estate tax which is an excise tax. Mr. Chief Justice Stone noted the respective interests of the spouses when, in the following language, he spoke of the effect of death:

"As we have seen, the death of the husband of the Louisiana marital community not only operates to transfer his rights in his share of the community to his heirs or those taking under his will. It terminates his expansive and sometimes profitable control over the wife's share, and for the first time brings her half of the property into her full and exclusive possession, control and enjoyment. The cessation of these extensive powers of the husband, even though they were powers over property which he never `owned,' and the establishment in the wife of new powers of control over her share, though it was always hers, furnish appropriate occasions for the imposition of an excise tax.
"Similarly, with the death of the wife, her title or ownership in her share of the community property ends, and passes to her heirs or other appointees. More than this, her death, by ending the marital community, liberates her husband's share from the restrictions which the existence of the community had placed upon his control of it. . . .
"This redistribution of powers and restrictions upon power is brought about by death notwithstanding that the rights in the property subject to these powers and restrictions were in every sense `vested' from the moment the community began. . . ." 326 U.S., at 355-356.
Thus the Louisiana statutes and cases also seem to foreclose the claims advanced by the respondents.