noting that "marital property generally includes property purchased or otherwise accumulated by the parties during the marriage [and] . . . property acquired before the marriage or received by gift or inheritance during the marriage when it is used, or income from it is used, regularly for the common benefit of the parties during their marriage"
How later courts described this case
- noting that "marital property generally includes property purchased or otherwise accumulated by the parties during the marriage [and] . . . property acquired before the marriage or received by gift or inheritance during the marriage when it is used, or income from it is used, regularly for the common benefit of the parties during their marriage"
- determining that property that the husband in that case had inherited was not marital property despite evidence indicating that the family had used it for hunting and other purposes
- discussing the difference between marital estates and separate estates and noting that property purchased during the marriage with marital funds is marital property
- although marital property generally includes property purchased or otherwise accumulated by the parties during the marriage, it may also include the property acquired before the marriage or received by gift or inheritance during the marriage when it is used, or income from it is used, regularly for the common benefit of the parties during the marriage
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
I must respectfully dissent. Although I agree that the trial court used some inappropriate terminology in fashioning its property division, the division itself appears to be equitable. The wife receives a total of $781,542 in assets under the trial court's judgment. A property division need not be equal, only equitable; the task of determining what is equitable falls to the trial court. Ross v. Ross, 447 So.2d 812
(Ala.Civ.App. 1984). I would affirm the judgment.