## Facts

- Husband and wife married in 1941 and separated on March 2, 1969.
- Wife filed for dissolution and property determination in April 1971.
- While the action was pending, Civil Code § 5118 was amended (effective March 4, 1972) to make a spouse’s earnings and accumulations while living “separate and apart” the separate property of the earning spouse.
- Under the former statute, the wife’s post-separation earnings were separate property, while the husband’s post-separation earnings remained community property.
- Trial occurred in May 1972; the superior court entered an interlocutory judgment dissolving the marriage and dividing property later that month.
- Husband argued the amended statute made his earnings after the 1969 separation his separate property.
- The trial court ruled only earnings after the amendment’s effective date were separate property and treated earlier post-separation earnings as community property.
- Husband appealed from property provisions of the interlocutory judgment.

## Issues

1. Whether amended Civil Code § 5118 applies to post-separation earnings acquired before its effective date when property rights have not yet been finally adjudicated by an unappealable judgment.
2. Whether applying amended § 5118 to such pre-effective-date earnings violates due process by depriving the non-earning spouse of vested property rights.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s limitation and held amended § 5118 applies retroactively to post-separation earnings not finally adjudicated.
- The court held retroactive application is constitutional and does not unlawfully deprive the non-earning spouse of property without due process.
- Husband’s earnings and accumulations from the date of separation (March 2, 1969), while living separate and apart, were his separate property for purposes of the pending dissolution.

## Legal Principles

- Statutes are presumed to operate prospectively, but that presumption yields to sufficiently clear legislative intent indicating retroactive application.
- A family-law statute governing marital property characterization may apply to property interests acquired before the statute’s effective date when the parties’ property rights have not been fixed by a final, unappealable judgment.
- In the marital property context, statutory expectations labeled “vested” may be modified or abrogated retroactively without violating due process when the Legislature acts pursuant to a legitimate public purpose and rational means, including correcting discriminatory or patently unfair rules.
- Legislative measures aimed at equal treatment of spouses in property rights may be applied retroactively where doing so advances equitable dissolution outcomes and removes unconstitutional disparities.

## Conclusion

The court construed amended Civil Code § 5118 to apply to all post-separation earnings in dissolution proceedings that were not yet final when the amendment took effect, and it upheld that retroactive application against a due process challenge because the change rationally corrected an inequitable, gender-based property rule.


In re Marriage of Bouquet, 16 Cal. 3d 583 (Cal. 1976)