One of the things about reading marital dissolution cases is that they sometimes provide a glimpse into the personal and/or professional lives of the litigants. Sometimes that's enlightening. Sometimes that's a bit depressing.
In today's opinion, it's a little of both. The spouses here were married in 1997 and separated in 2010. So they had 13 years together. Husband was a senior manager with Ernst & Young throughout the marriage. Not a bad job.
On the upside for Husband, he becomes a partner at E & Y. As a double-plus upside, he joined the E & Y partnership on January 1, 2012 -- less than two years after getting separated. Which means that all his partnership money is his separate property. Including the nearly $1 million lump sum retirement payment that's at issue in this case.
Lesson: If you're going to get divorced, do it right before you start making the big bucks.
So total good luck for the Husband, right?
Sort of.
He becomes a partner in 2012. Then look at what happens right after that: "Respondent suffered a heart attack in 2014. In October 2015, Ernst & Young requested that he withdraw as a partner, and he resigned from the firm effective December 2015."
So, yeah, Husband becomes a partner, and gets all the money, but what it took to eventually get there takes its toll, and he's only a partner for a couple of years before his debilitating heart attack and resulting forced departure.
Sometimes bad comes with the good.
