Court Opinion

ID: 9667841
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:56:12.348708+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:40.143285
License: Public Domain

SPEARS, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the court. Cameron v. Cameron, 641 S.W.2d 210, 221-23 (Tex.1982) was based in large part upon Section 3.63 of the Family Code which provided statutory authorization for the characterization of property acquired outside of Texas as quasi-community property. No such provision is present in the Probate Code; therefore, I concur.
The court’s opinion creates two rules for the characterization of the same property. A husband and wife from a common law state could retire to Texas with the majority of their property characterized as the husband’s separate marital property. If the wife brought divorce proceedings, the “separate” marital property would be characterized as quasi-community property under Cameron and Section 3.63 of the Family Code. The trial court would then be authorized to divide the marital property between the spouses in a manner that it deemed just and right. Under the majority’s decision in this case, the same husband could execute a will devising all the “separate” marital property to a third party leaving the wife without any means of support after he dies.
Most jurisdictions have some method to protect the interest and insure the support of surviving spouses. This court’s holding leaves surviving spouses without the protection afforded by either common law or community property statutory schemes in certain situations. Accordingly, I urge the Legislature to eliminate this illogical and potentially inequitable difference in the characterization of marital property by adopting a Probate Code section similar to Section 3.63 of the Family Code and the probate codes of other jurisdictions. See California Prob.Code § 66 (West 1985); Idaho Code § 15-2-201 (1971).