Court Opinion

ID: 9588041
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:29:08.696478+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:00:56.797996
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring in part in the result.
That I have not joined the Court’s opinion authored by Justice Huntley is not to be taken as evidencing my disagreement with what he has written. Rather, it is that in the Christmas rush of releasing opinions, there simply has not been an opportunity to give that review of prior cases a deserving study. Moreover, I do not believe that the issue presented calls for any exhaustive review of principles and doctrines of community property law. I find this case relatively simple on the facts, some of which are *816documented. Basically, what we have here is a marriage of the parties occurring in June of 1972, just after Mr. Winn was fresh from divorcing his first wife, and presumably getting a first-hand lesson in the law of community property. The Winns apparently wearied of paying rent, and determined to be homeowners. Together they searched for a home, and together found one. The real estate broker, as is usually the case, wrote up an earnest money receipt and agreement, taking the paltry sum of $200 at that time. The Winns were able to borrow $24,000 of the total purchase price, which left them still owing $3,346.14 — which Mr. Winn added, although nothing, absolutely nothing, in the record suggests that he did so with any understanding that the community owed him anything. The $200 could as well have been put up by Mrs. Winn, and again, nothing in the record suggests any understanding of the parties that at some future time Mr. Winn would be able to claim that the character of the property should hinge on the innocuous determination, if there was one, as to who of the two should write the $200 check.
To recapitulate the transaction, the Provident loan is evidenced by a deed of trust, Plaintiff’s Exhibit 3, executed the first day of November, 1972, securing a $24,000 promissory note. The Lawyers Title Insurance company insured the title in the Winns by its policy no. C-28767 dated November 3, 1972, subject to the trust deed. Then, and long thereafter, on November 13, 1972, Mr. Winn’s bank account was debited in the sum of $3,146.14, the balance of the agreed purchase price, leaving his account with a balance of $264.25. Plaintiff’s Exhibit 1.
How the respondent can argue, and the Court can agree, that Mr. Winn made a down payment of $200 and $3,146.14 prior to their borrowing the money on their signatures and on the security of the trust deed, is beyond my comprehension. Clearly the Winns decided to buy a house and pay out interest (and bits of principal) instead of collecting rent receipts. Mr. Winn added that which couldn’t be obtained from the lender. I have yet to see a more factual establishment of a community purchase.
Although I am not adamantly opposed to the majority’s view that Mr. Winn is entitled to reimbursement for his $3,146.14,1 do not subscribe to the view that Mr. Winn is entitled to credit for the monthly payments — which for certain were in the nature of the rent they had been paying, and surely gave him a nice tax deduction as well, absent some proof of which there is none, that the parties agreed to his paying that which ostensibly was in the power of either or both to pay.