## Facts

- Rebecca Leah Hoak and Bruce Allyn Hoak married in 1980 while Bruce was in medical school and Rebecca was employed.
- During the early marriage, Rebecca left her field to earn higher pay and provided most financial support and homemaker services while Bruce completed medical school.
- After Bruce graduated in 1983, he began a five-year surgical residency and became the primary financial supporter; Rebecca worked only intermittently.
- The parties separated in September 1984; Bruce filed for divorce in circuit court the next month.
- Temporary orders required Bruce to pay monthly alimony and child support; child support was later reduced.
- A special commissioner recommended limited child support and rehabilitative alimony for two years or until Rebecca became gainfully employed.
- The circuit court refused to treat Bruce’s medical degree as marital property and awarded only the recommended limited rehabilitative alimony.
- Rebecca appealed, challenging both the property characterization of the degree and the adequacy of economic relief.

## Issues

1. Whether a professional degree earned during marriage is marital property subject to equitable distribution under West Virginia law.
2. If a professional degree is not marital property, what remedy may compensate a spouse who substantially supported the other spouse’s attainment of the degree.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia held that a professional degree is not marital property subject to equitable distribution.
- The court adopted reimbursement alimony as the proper mechanism to compensate a supporting spouse for substantial contributions to the other spouse’s education or training that enhanced earning capacity.
- The circuit court’s judgment was reversed and the case was remanded for reconsideration of alimony consistent with reimbursement principles.

## Legal Principles

- A professional degree is not marital property because it lacks market value, cannot be sold or transferred, and is personal to the degree-holder.
- Valuing a degree as property based on future earning capacity is too speculative and risks duplicative treatment of income in both distribution and support determinations.
- Reimbursement alimony is a backward-looking award intended to repay the supporting spouse for significant financial contributions, forgone opportunities, and domestic services that enabled the other spouse’s education or training.
- Reimbursement alimony is especially appropriate when divorce occurs before the supporting spouse receives the expected shared benefits of the enhanced earning capacity.

## Conclusion

West Virginia rejected classifying a professional degree as divisible marital property but required courts to address the economic inequity created when one spouse finances the other’s professional education by recognizing reimbursement alimony to compensate the supporting spouse for substantial contributions.


Hoak v. Hoak, 370 S.E.2d 473 (W. Va. 1988)