Court Opinion

ID: 9762509
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:25:42.200924+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:35.144835
License: Public Domain

VANCE, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion and concur in the view that the draconian requirements of the tracing of nonmarital assets set forth by earlier cases should be relaxed. The majority opinion, in my opinion, does not set forth guidelines which can be used to determine the adequacy of tracing of nonmarital assets in cases other than the one under review.
Upon the dissolution of a marriage, it is the duty of the court to assign each spouse’s property to him and to divide the marital property in just proportions. K.R.S. 403.109(1). All property acquired by either spouse subsequent to the marriage is presumed to be marital property except:
1. Property acquired by gift, bequest, devise, or descent;
2. Property acquired in exchange for property acquired before the marriage or in exchange for property acquired by gift, bequest, devise, or descent;
3. Property acquired by a spouse after a decree of legal separation;
4. Property excluded by valid agreement of the parties; and
5. The increase in value of property acquired before the marriage to the extent that such increase did not result from the efforts of the parties during marriage.
K.R.S. 403.190(2). Property owned by a spouse prior to the marriage is also non-marital property.
As long as nonmarital property is kept separate and apart, there usually is no difficulty in proving its classification as non-marital. When a nonmarital asset is sold or otherwise converted to cash and commingled with marital assets it loses its separate identity, and it often becomes impossible to trace any specific dollar in a commingled account as the same dollar that *581was received in exchange for a nonmarital asset.
I would not require such precise tracing. The tracing of one asset into another is a complicated legal and accounting process, and, in my opinion, it is inimical to the spirit of marriage. As I stated in my concurring opinion in Turley v. Turley, Ky. App., 562 S.W.2d 665, 669 (1978):
“Marriage connotes sharing, with the concentration upon what is ‘ours’ rather than what is ‘his’ and what is ‘hers.’ It does not bode well for the institution of marriage if each partner must keep in the back of his mind the possible advantage to be obtained by keeping up with and being able to trace every penny brought into the marriage. In addition, the process of tracing is usually so complex that the expense involved cannot be justified when the accumulation is small as in this case.”
I think it is the clear intent of K.R.S. 403.190 that whatever property is accumulated during a marriage due to the joint efforts of the parties should be divided between them in just proportions, and whatever property that was brought to the marriage by either of them- or inherited by either party or acquired in exchange for such property, should be restored to each of them as nonmarital property.
The parties to a marriage cannot be said to have accumulated any property during the marriage by their joint efforts unless they own more property than they owned at the time of the marriage or later acquired by gift or inheritance. I would therefore indulge the presumption that monies expended by them during the marriage from commingled marital and nonmarital assets was an expenditure of marital funds and would not serve to decrease the amount of their nonmarital property unless it could be shown that their total assets at some point were reduced to less than the value of their nonmarital assets. If that event should occur, the parties would, of course, have exhausted all of their marital property and part of their nonmarital property, and the value of each spouse’s non-marital property should be reduced pro rata.
In other words, where marital and non-marital funds have been commingled in a bank account, all withdrawals from the account will be considered to be marital funds until the marital funds are exhausted. It would follow that the only tracing of non-marital property necessary would be proof that nonmarital property once existed. If it no longer exists in its original form, there should be proof that it had been exchanged for other property or converted into cash, and proof that the total assets upon dissolution were greater than the total value of the nonmarital assets and/or property received in exchange for such nonmarital assets. If there is a contention that the total value of their assets at sometime during the marriage was reduced to an amount less than the value of their nonmarital property, the burden of proof should rest upon the party making the claim.
We reach this result in this case. Mrs. Chenault sold her house and her $10,000.00 treasury note and was completely unable to trace the money she received in those transactions into her current assets, which now have a much greater value. Since it is not shown that her total assets were ever less than the amount she received in exchange for her house and her treasury note, we simply indulge the presumption that the amount she received for her non-marital property remains intact as a part of the assets she now owns. She is therefore entitled to be awarded this nonmarital property before a division of marital property occurs.