In re the Marriage of: Thomas Eldon Dillon and Dorothy Ann Clark ( 2017 )

FILED
JULY 13, 2017
In the Office of the Clerk of Court
WA State Court of Appeals, Division III
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
DIVISION THREE
In the Matter of the Marriage of )
) No. 34158-5-111
THOMAS ELDON DILLON, )
)
Appellant, )
)
and ) UNPUBLISHED OPINION
)
DOROTHY ANN CLARK, )
)
Respondent. )
KORSMO, J. - An estate appeals from the dismissal of the dissolution proceeding
that had been in progress at the time of the husband's death. Precedent and policy
compel us to affirm. The limited ability to attack an existing dissolution judgment decree
after death is fundamentally different than obtaining a decree of dissolution after death.
FACTS
Thomas Dillon married Dorothy Clark in December 2008, some seven months
after the couple had signed a prenuptial agreement. That agreement required Dillon's
will to leave several items of Dillon's personal property (a house, vehicles titled in his
name, any horses he owned) to Clark if they were still married at the time of his death.
Mr. Dillon learned that he was terminally ill with cancer and had only 30 days to
live. He immediately instituted dissolution proceedings and soon thereafter changed his
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will to disinherit Ms. Clark. Mr. Dillon, age 85, died May 12, 2015, 39 days after filing
the dissolution action. Mr. Dillon's daughter, Sandra Saffran, became the personal
representative of his estate.
Ms. Saffran promptly moved to substitute the estate in place of Mr. Dillon as the
petitioner in the dissolution action in order to continue that proceeding. A court
commissioner denied the motion to substitute and, instead, recognized that the dissolution
action had abated due to the death of Mr. Dillon. A superior court judge denied the
estate's motion to revise that ruling.
Ms. Saffran, on behalf of her father's estate, promptly appealed to this court.
ANALYSIS
The single issue in this case is whether the trial court erred in denying substitution
due to the abatement of the dissolution action. The trial court correctly applied this
state's long-standing precedent.
The Washington Supreme Court has long recognized "that it is the well-settled law
in this state that a divorce action abates on the death of either party." Osborne v. Osborne,
60 Wash. 2d 163, 165-166, 372 P.2d 538 (1962). The abatement policy dates back to at least
Dwyer v. Nolan, 40 Wash. 459, 82 P. 746 (1905), rev'd, In re Marriage of Himes, 136
Wash. 2d 707, 965 P.2d 1087 (1998). It has continued into the current dissolution act. E.g.,
In re Marriage of Himes, 136 Wash. 2d at 726; In re Marriage ofPratt, 99 Wash. 2d 905, 908,
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665 P.2d 400 (1983); Luvern V. Rieke, The Dissolution Act of 1973: From Status to
Contract?, 49 WASH. L. REV. 375,418 (1974).
Nonetheless, relying on RCW 4.20.050 1 and seizing on the resolution of Himes,
the estate argues that when other interests--such as ownership of property-----continue to
exist despite the death of one of the parties to the marriage, it is appropriate to continue
the action. The estate mistakenly applies Himes outside of its context. There are
circumstances where the abatement doctrine will not prohibit an attack on a judgment, but
those exceptions do not authorize the filing or continuation of an action to resolve a status
that has already ended.
Himes involved an action to resolve which of the decedent's wives was his widow.
The Washington husband had divorced his first wife, who lived across the country in
Pennsylvania, without actual notice to her, several years before his death. Himes, 136
Wash. 2d at 711-712. He then remarried a year before he died. Id. at 712. The first wife
found out about the marriage dissolution shortly before his death when the Navy
terminated her benefits; she sought to vacate the judgment due to fraud. Id. at 713-714.
The second wife argued that the dissolution had been abated by the husband's death, so
there was nothing the first wife could attack. Id. at 718.
1
"No action shall abate by the death, marriage, or other disability of the party, or
by the transfer of any interest therein, if the cause of action survives or continues."
(emphasis added).
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Himes overruled the Dwyer principle that the death of a party to a divorce or
dissolution "eliminates the subject matter of the action." Id. at 737. Instead, the court
recognized that equitable principles could justify the surviving party attacking a
fraudulentjudgment. Id. at 736-737.
A few years later this court applied equitable principles recognized in Himes and
declined to abate a dissolution appeal merely because one of the parties had died during
the appeal. In re Marriage of Fiorito, 112 Wash. App. 657, 50 P.3d 298 (2002). There the
husband had died after the wife had appealed the dissolution in order to challenge the
property distribution and support obligations. Id. at 659-660. Citing Himes, this court
permitted the attack on the nonfinal judgment, despite the death of the husband, due to
"both equitable grounds and significant third party interests." Id. at 663. Specifically,
this court relied on the statutory requirement that property be divided in a "just and
equitable manner," 2 and the interest of third parties--the couple's young children-in the
child support order. Id. In other words, this court allowed an appeal to continue in order
to permit resolution of judgment provisions unrelated to the marital status of the
couple-the subject of the abatement doctrine.
Relying on Himes and Fiorito, the estate argues that it is equitable to permit the
dissolution to proceed in the trial court because of the interest of the estate and third
2
RCW 26.09.080.
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parties (Mr. Dillon's heirs) in the distribution of his property. For multiple reasons, we
disagree. 3 First, in every earlier instance where equitable principles have permitted an
exception to the abatement doctrine, the case already had reached judgment. See Himes,
136 Wash. 2d at 719-726 (discussing cases); Fiorito, 112 Wash. App. at 660-663 (same); 20
SCOTT HORENSTEIN, WASHING TON PRACTICE: FAMILY AND COMMUNITY PROPERTY
LA w § 31: 11, at 58 (2d ed. 2015) (summarizing case exceptions to abatement doctrine).
Second, permitting the dissolution to proceed would result in the absurd situation that
Ms. Clark would remain "married" to her late husband's estate, prohibiting her from
remarrying or otherwise managing her affairs as a single person would, despite the legal
impossibility of such a marriage under our statutes, merely because his heirs wished to
continue the marital status a bit longer. 4 See RCW 26.04.010 (defining marriage as a
contract between two individuals).
3 Even if the dissolution had been permitted to proceed, nothing would preclude
the trial court from exercising its discretion to award all of the separate and community
property to Ms. Clark. Due to Mr. Dillon's death, he no longer would have need of that
property vis-a-vis Ms. Clark, the only other party to the dissolution.
4
"If the death of the plaintiff in this case had occurred before judgment, it will not
be urged that there could have been a substitution of his executors to represent him in the
prosecution of the case. Such a proposition, for manifest reasons, would not be
entertained by a court for a moment." Dwyer, 40 Wash. at 461. Although Himes
overruled the Dwyer holding that death abates all actions relating to a divorce, Himes still
acknowledged and followed the same general abatement principle recognized in Dwyer.
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This case is substantively identical to Pratt. There the court after a bench trial had
issued its oral decision dissolving the marriage and assigning property. The parties
reduced the judgment to writing and signed it, but had not presented the decree to the
court before the husband died. 99 Wash. 2d at 907. The trial court, over the objection of the
wife, entered the judgment nunc pro tune effective to a date when the husband had still
been alive. Id. In light of the abatement doctrine and the fact that the husband's adult
children were not parties to the dissolution action, there was no standing for the husband's
counsel to seek entry of the decree since he did not represent a party. Id. at 908.
Similarly here, the death of Mr. Dillon abated this action. His estate could not
continue the litigation because the marital status had already ended with Mr. Dillon's
death. Nothing would be achieved by continuing the litigation to temporarily keep alive
a fictitious marriage involving a dead spouse simply so it could end on a different date. 5
5 For a dissolution decree to have interrupted this prenuptial agreement, it would
have to have been entered at a time when Mr. Dillon was still alive since the prenuptial
agreement transferred property upon Mr. Dillon's death. That would be factually
impossible now, and there also was no way to retroactively enter a decree of dissolution
to an earlier time since Mr. Dillon died during the 90 day waiting period of the statute.
For all of these reasons, the estate could not benefit by further litigation.
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The trial court correctly denied the motion to substitute parties since the action had
ended with the death of Mr. Dillon. Accordingly, the judgment is affirmed.
A majority of the panel has determined this opinion will not be printed in the
Washington Appellate Reports, but it will be filed for public record pursuant to RCW
2.06.040.
WE CONCUR:
Lawrence-Berrey, J.
j
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