Tuesday, May 11, 2021

In re Marriage of Kelpe (Cal. Ct. App. - May 11, 2021)

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.