## Facts

- Elvis P. Davis and Travis P. Davis were romantically involved and cohabited from July 1972 to June 1985 without a ceremonial marriage.
- They had one child in 1974; Elvis used the “Davis” surname during the relationship.
- Elvis initially worked in Travis’s furniture business, but stopped working about nine months after the child’s birth and primarily provided childcare and household services.
- Travis’s net worth increased from roughly $850,000 at the relationship’s start to approximately $7,050,000 (net) by the 1985 separation.
- Travis sometimes treated Elvis as a spouse in documents (e.g., tax returns listing her as “wife” and a will referring to her as “wife” and creating a marital trust).
- Travis characterized Elvis as a mistress and testified that he had asked her to marry him at least once, which she declined.
- After separation, Travis provided Elvis a home (with substantial remodeling/furnishing expenses) and a car.
- In 1986, Elvis sued seeking an equitable division of “partnership assets,” asserting the relationship functioned as a business partnership entitling her to share in the accumulated wealth.

## Issues

1. Whether an unmarried cohabitant may obtain an equitable division of assets accumulated during cohabitation under a palimony-type or marital-style equitable distribution theory absent a valid marriage.
2. Whether the evidence established a business partnership between the parties that would entitle the claimant to partnership assets.

## Decision

- The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed dismissal of Elvis’s complaint.
- The court held Mississippi courts would not recognize a general palimony-type right to share in property accumulated during a nonmarital cohabitation; any such policy change was for the legislature.
- The court held the evidence did not prove a business partnership because Elvis did not jointly manage the business and there was no sufficient proof of an agreement to share profits and losses as partners.

## Legal Principles

- Absent a valid marriage, Mississippi courts will not apply marital equitable-distribution principles to divide property accumulated during cohabitation.
- Recognition of a generalized “palimony” remedy for unmarried cohabitants is a legislative, not judicial, choice.
- A business partnership requires proof of mutual intent to form a partnership, including an agreement to share profits and losses and joint participation through management and/or meaningful business contributions consistent with partnership law.
- Cohabitation, use of a partner’s surname, domestic services, and sporadic references to “wife” in personal documents do not, without more, create either a marriage or a business partnership.

## Conclusion

The court refused to extend marital-style equitable distribution to unmarried cohabitants and concluded that the claimant failed to prove a business partnership; therefore, she was not entitled to share in the other partner’s wealth accumulated during the relationship.


Davis v. Davis, 643 So. 2d 931 (Miss. 1994)