## Facts

- Husband and wife were married about 10 years, had no children, separated in October 1993, and a dissolution petition was filed in December 1993.
- Husband was an attorney with a practice including personal-injury matters on a contingency-fee basis; at separation he had accounts receivable of about $77,689.90 and several pending contingency-fee cases.
- In at least one pending case, a $1.2 million settlement offer existed but had not been accepted or rejected at the time of dissolution.
- Husband testified the pending contingency-fee cases had no value because outcomes were uncertain.
- Wife worked primarily in banking; at trial she worked part-time as a bank teller earning $7.25 per hour.
- The trial court valued the community property (including real estate, personal property, accounts, and securities) at about $387,738.
- The trial court assigned the pending contingency-fee cases a value of zero and awarded them to husband.
- The court awarded wife assets valued at $209,855 (including a $60,000 cash payment secured by a judgment lien) and awarded husband net assets of $177,883 after liabilities.
- The court awarded wife maintenance of $1,000 per month, terminating when she received $73,631 from husband, explaining that the unequal property division was intended to meet her needs in lieu of additional maintenance.
- After the decree, husband received a contingency fee of $178,640.72 from a case treated as valueless; wife moved to vacate based on newly discovered evidence and alleged misrepresentation, and the motion was denied.

## Issues

1. Whether wife’s appeal from the dissolution decree was timely.
2. Whether the trial court erred by valuing husband’s pending contingency-fee cases at zero and excluding them from the community property division.
3. Whether the overall property distribution and maintenance award constituted an abuse of discretion.
4. Whether the trial court erred in denying wife’s motion to vacate the decree based on the later contingency-fee recovery and alleged misrepresentation.

## Decision

- The appellate court held the appeal was timely.
- The court held an attorney’s interest in pending contingency-fee cases may be a community asset to the extent earned during marriage, but affirmed the trial court’s decision to assign no present value where valuation would be speculative and to award the cases to husband.
- The court affirmed the property division and maintenance award as within the trial court’s discretion and consistent with a just and equitable distribution.
- The court affirmed denial of the motion to vacate, holding the later fee recovery was not newly discovered evidence and the record did not establish fraud or misrepresentation sufficient to reopen the decree.

## Legal Principles

- In dissolution, compensation for services performed during marriage is generally community property even if received after separation, and this can include an interest in pending contingency-fee matters.
- Trial courts have broad discretion to value assets; a valuation will be reversed only for manifest abuse of discretion.
- Where an asserted asset’s value depends on uncertain future events and cannot be determined without speculation, the court may assign it no present value and address fairness through the overall property and maintenance awards.
- A property division need not be equal, but must be just and equitable in light of the marriage length, the nature and extent of property, and each spouse’s economic circumstances.
- A post-decree event creating value does not qualify as newly discovered evidence for vacating a judgment when the event had not occurred at the time of trial.
- Vacatur based on fraud or misrepresentation requires more than showing a later favorable outcome; disclosure of the asset’s existence and uncertainty, without concealment of an actual settlement or guaranteed recovery, is insufficient.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a dissolution decree that treated pending contingency-fee cases as too speculative to value at the time of dissolution, approved an unequal property award and limited maintenance designed to meet the wife’s needs, and refused to reopen the judgment based on a large post-decree contingent fee absent proof of fraud or evidence that existed but was undiscovered at trial.


In re Marriage of Estes, 84 Wn. App. 586, 929 P.2d 500 (Wash. Ct. App. 1997)