Court Opinion

ID: 9732263
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:13:39.075118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:25.690513
License: Public Domain

COMPTON, J.
I dissent.
The majority appears to be preoccupied with David’s lifestyle and extravagance to the extent of ignoring the requirement that Ellie demonstrate a need for attorney’s fees.
Our opinion in In re Marriage of Mulhern, 29 Cal.App.3d 988 [106 Cal.Rptr. 78], would militate against the awarding of attorney’s fees to a wife in a post-judgment proceeding who is possessed of $127,000 in assets regardless of the affluence of her former husband. As we attempted to point out in Mulhern, supra, the advent of the Family Law Act has markedly changed the approach of the courts in awarding attorney’s fees to the wife in post-judgment proceedings.
*430As we stated in Mulhern, supra, at page 995, “Under the New Family Law Act, as between the spouses, the dissolution process is not unlike the dissolution of a business partnership. An equal distribution of assets, liabilities and responsibilities is mandated to the end that upon entry of the dissolution decree the parties are to the extent possible placed in a position of economic parity. . . . Prior to entry of the decree the wife is generally in a disadvantageous position as a result of the husband’s control of the community property. (Civ. Code, § 5105.)”
Once the marriage is dissolved the law does not guarantee that the wife will continue in economic parity with the husband and she. no longer is in the disadvantageous position of the husband having control of her assets. To that extent then,. following the dissolution absent a strong showing of necessity, the husband should not be required to finance the wife’s subsequent litigation against him. In the case at bar we are dealing with a relatively young woman who apparently is in good health and the controversy for which the fees are being sought did not involve child support. To award Ellie $6,200 in fees with no more showing of need than was exhibited here serves as an open invitation to ex-wives and their lawyers to harass affluent ex-husbands with everything to gain and nothing to losé.
I would reverse the order.