Court Opinion

ID: 9850072
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:51:48.815749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:31.377685
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Agreeing with the Court’s disposition of the transmutation doctrine, I agree with *662the district court that there was no reason to determine whether the two half-sections were or were not acquired as separate property of the husband. Seeing that much of our opinion as dictum, I nevertheless tend to agree that the Chief Justice’s conclusion is probably the correct one.
There is an inescapable inference to be drawn from the fact that the Community Property Agreement was executed and recorded on the very last day before the repealer took effect. For that reason I cannot believe our opinion is sound in not being persuaded by the husband’s argument that the “Agreement” was entered into in order to obtain the benefits of I.C. § 32-921 while it still had life. But I do not see that error as fatal to a decision which provides a result consonant with the unambiguous language of the Agreement, and also a result compatible with the fact that the parties at that time were not incompatible.
Going beyond declaring the status of the property, the document in question clearly evidences an intent on the part of both parties to create a community estate at that time. To my mind it is of no concern that there was neither legislative enactment nor prior Idaho Supreme Court precedent “authorizing” a transmutation of property. The Court of Appeals opinion in Stockdale v. Stockdale leaves me totally perplexed, and I do not presently embrace the views therein set forth, other than the statement at p. 873 of 102 Idaho, at p. 85 of 643 P.2d declaring that “certain formalities” are required. Those formalities are, presently at least, a written instrument which is signed by the party to be charged and described the property with certainty. In this case the property is so described, and the document is signed by the husband and by the wife. And, those signatures were acknowledged on the 30th day of June, 1972.
With all due respect to the Court of Appeals and the majority of this Court, there has never been in Idaho any restraint on a husband’s right to transfer and convey to his wife his interest in real property, whether it be thought to be separate, or thought to be community. Such transfers have been made forever. Moreover, I would doubt the constitutionality of any statute the purpose of which was to prohibit that right of alienation, and especially where the conveyance is in favor of a spouse. The older practitioners will remember that in some instances the procedure was for a husband to deed his separate property to a third party who would in turn deed it back to the marital community — in the habendum of that deed was language to the effect that the conveyance was to the husband and wife grantees as community property. This procedure, of course, was a throwback to technical common law conveyancing. In time the procedure became simply that one spouse would simply convey to himself or herself and the other spouse, “to be held as community property.” Apparently under the law of ■England it had been thought at one time that a person could not execute a conveyance to himself. But, the law of England did not have the concept of a marital entity — which is, of course, the foundation of community property.
The basic issue here is whether the 1972 “Agreement” divested the husband of any separate estate in the described real property, and transferred his interest to the two of them as community property. Clearly it did so. Without doubt the parties in 1972 had in mind to take advantage of I.C. § 32-921 before it became ineffective; but equally without doubt that happy couple who then sought to avoid the expenses of probate, went beyond doing that which was necessary to do so, and in the process all of the described real property became the marital couple’s community estate. That which they did is not ambiguous, is readily ascertainable, and it is unrealistic to say, as does Justice Bakes, there should be a “swearing match” some twelve years later to ascertain if they intended to do what they did.
In conclusion, I mention that I have written separately only to make it perfectly clear that prior to I.C. § 32-921, there was *663not (and I suggest could not have been), any prohibition against an outright conveyance by one spouse to the other, or by one spouse to both spouses as community property.1 For certain, however, absent fraud, the spouse executing the conveyance of his separate property had to live with that act. I.C. § 32-921 in essence was a testamentary device which would be given effect at death if not otherwise rescinded or modified. Today we have reviewed an instrument which was a conveyance in praesenti.
Other than for the expression of differing views herein set forth, I concur in the Court’s opinion. I concur in the judgment affirming the courts below.

. Prior to the Court's opinion issued today, and prior to Stockdale, it had never occurred to me that anyone doubted the right of one spouse to convert separate property into community property of the marital estate. The procedure for doing so was probably suggested by I.C. § 55-104:
55-104. Interests in common. — Every interest created in favor of several persons in their own right is an interest in common, unless acquired by them in partnership, for partnership purposes, or unless declared in its creation to be a joint interest, or unless acquired as community property." (Emphasis added.)
Our esteemed teacher, Dr. W.J. Brockelbank, in his book on the subject of community property, apparently saw no need to discuss the utilization of the declarations of a habendum clause in interspousal conveyances creating a community estate in the marital community. But he did discuss the application of the above statute in connection with the creation of joint tenancies in a community property state. In particular, Dr. Brockelbank gave credit to the views of R.D. Merrill that “since spouses are free to convey their interests, they may agree that property to be conveyed to them may be conveyed to them and held in joint tenancy.” Brockelbank at p. 238. I submit that that which the parties may do where joint tenancy estates are concerned can also be done where community property estates are concerned. It was ever thus.