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Video Blog 2015 August Calif. Judge Defines Legal Separation
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Calif. Judge Defines Legal Separation

Posted By The Graves Law Firm || 10-Aug-2015

One of the murkier divorce situations to define is a separation. The question about when the actual separation occurred has been the sticking point of many contentious court debates. Luckily, a recent California Supreme Court decision has clearly defined a separation as the time when different residences are established. This is known at a bright-line rule, a clearly defined rule or standard, composed of objective factors, which leaves little or no room for varying interpretation.

“A bright-line rule ... promotes fairness by providing a measure of predictability to the parties and their attorney, as well as clear guidance to judges,” Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye wrote in her decision. “It reduces the potential for manipulation of a more elastic standard by the higher earner in situations of significant income disparity.”

The impetus for Justice Cantil-Sakauye’s ruling was a case involving a former Northern California couple who went to court in a dispute over financial support after their marriage fell apart. Sheryl Davis claimed she and her husband, Xavier Davis, formally separated in 2006, when she declared the marriage over and they began living mostly separate lives, but under the same roof.

Originally, the Superior Court and the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco agreed with Sheryl Davis, but Justice Cantil-Sakauye’s ruling overturned them and made a constant threshold for California divorce cases.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle. “The ruling makes Xavier Davis eligible to receive a share of his wife’s income for the previous five years, a period in which she made more money than he did. Under the state’s community-property law, spouses must share their income and their jointly acquired property until they separate.”

For more: State Supreme Court defines legal separation in divorce cases (SFGate.com)

Photo: @hang_in_there

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