## Facts

- Husband and wife married in 1956 and separated on April 1, 1975, after about 19 years.
- At separation, wife was 43 and husband 44; they had two adult sons.
- For roughly the last decade of marriage, the spouses jointly operated a custom sign-making business; husband handled production and sales and wife performed bookkeeping and clerical work.
- The business net income averaged about $17,000 annually (1972–1974) and about $9,818 for 1975.
- The community estate included the business, the family residence, vehicles, and several small rental properties.
- During marriage, wife inherited $14,000, deposited it into a joint account, and funds from that account were used for (1) a down payment on a Costa Mesa real property parcel, (2) installation of a swimming pool at the residence, and (3) purchase of business equipment while wife was out of the country.
- The trial court characterized the Costa Mesa property, the pool improvement value, and the equipment as community property and denied wife reimbursement for her inheritance funds.
- On temporary orders, husband received exclusive control of the business, wife was excluded, and wife received $200 per month spousal support.
- The interlocutory dissolution judgment awarded the business to husband, the residence to wife, divided rental properties, ordered sale of one property to pay community debts and attorney’s fees, and reimbursed husband $2,678.77 for paying preexisting community obligations after separation.

## Issues

1. Whether the spousal support order abused discretion by imposing automatic “step-down” reductions and automatic termination after five years in a long-term marriage.
2. Whether wife’s inheritance, deposited into a joint account and used for acquisitions and improvements, was properly treated as a gift to the community, defeating reimbursement.
3. Whether husband was entitled to reimbursement from the community for post-separation payment of preexisting community debts, and under what standards.
4. Whether properly qualified evidence of comparable real property sales was admissible to prove value in the dissolution proceeding.

## Decision

- The court reversed the automatic termination of spousal support after five years as an abuse of discretion because the record did not clearly show wife would be self-supporting by then and the order would eliminate future jurisdiction.
- The court reversed unsupported automatic step-down reductions during years two through four because there was no evidentiary basis for predicted material changes during that period.
- The court upheld a nominal support level ($1 per year) after four years as a permissible method to preserve jurisdiction while recognizing expected improvement in wife’s earning capacity from completing her education.
- The court affirmed the community characterization of property and improvements paid with wife’s inheritance, finding substantial evidence of an intended gift to the community and no agreement for reimbursement.
- The court upheld, with clarification of governing standards, the award reimbursing husband for post-separation payment of preexisting community obligations, treating reimbursement as an equitable determination rather than automatic.
- The court approved admission of properly qualified comparable sales evidence to establish real property value.

## Legal Principles

- In a long-term marriage, a fixed-date automatic termination of spousal support is improper where the evidence does not clearly establish that the supported spouse will be self-supporting by the termination date; courts should ordinarily preserve jurisdiction to modify support.
- Automatic “step-down” support reductions must be supported by evidence of reasonably anticipated changes in relevant circumstances; absent such proof, preset reductions are an abuse of discretion.
- A nominal spousal support award may be used to preserve jurisdiction when future self-support is expected but not sufficiently certain to justify termination.
- A spouse who uses separate property for community purposes is entitled to reimbursement only upon an agreement for reimbursement; absent an agreement, the trier of fact may infer a gift to the community from commingling and the spouses’ treatment of the assets.
- Reimbursement for one spouse’s post-separation payment of preexisting community obligations is governed by equitable considerations and is distinct from reimbursement rules for separate-to-community contributions during marriage.
- Properly qualified evidence of comparable real property sales is admissible to prove value in dissolution proceedings.

## Conclusion

The court curtailed fixed-term and automatic reduction support orders that lacked evidentiary support in a long marriage, affirmed a finding that commingled inherited funds were gifted to the community absent an agreement for reimbursement, treated post-separation debt-payment reimbursement as an equitable matter, and approved comparable-sales proof for real property valuation.


In re Marriage of Smith, 79 Cal. App. 3d 725 (Ct. App. 1978)