Tuesday, September 26, 2023

In re Marriage of Simonis (Cal. Ct. App. - Sept. 26, 2023)

I always think of Alpine County, California as a sleepy little rural community. It only has 1,200 (!) residents, and the crime rate doesn't seem that high, so you very rarely see cases come out of there. Moreover, although some farming goes on up there, it's not a rich area: the median family income is $50,000/year.

Given all that, I was surprised to read this opinion, which involves a married couple of 27 years up there going through a divorce. They were farmers and raised cattle, which was not massively surprising. What was, however, somewhat surprising is that the couple were multimillionaires, with extensive holdings and (as a result) somewhat strongly contested divorce proceedings.

That's a lot of money for what I had heretofore thought was a rural community without a large number of really wealthy people.