## Facts

- John Wilson Hubbard and Ruth Vanhook Hubbard married on February 15, 1964.
- In 1971, John began working for Jacobs Engineering Company and enrolled in Jacobs’s thrift savings retirement plan.
- John signed a beneficiary designation naming Ruth as the primary beneficiary and listing contingent beneficiaries, including his daughters from a prior marriage.
- John funded the retirement-plan account through payroll deductions from his salary.
- The Hubbards lived in Florida while John participated in the plan; they moved to Louisiana in May 1976.
- John’s employment with Jacobs ended in 1977, and Jacobs closed his retirement-plan account.
- In settlement of his plan account, John received 188 shares of Jacobs stock plus a cash payment for the account’s accumulated cash value.
- No additional shares were purchased after John left Jacobs; the shares increased over time only through stock splits, to about 2,044 shares.
- John died on December 21, 1985, domiciled in Louisiana, with the stock registered in his name.
- Succession proceedings were opened on September 22, 1998.
- John’s daughters petitioned to be recognized as the sole owners of the Jacobs stock as John’s separate property and obtained a judgment in their favor after a 1999 hearing.
- Ruth appealed, arguing that John’s retirement-plan beneficiary designation (and related multiple-beneficiary paperwork) should control ownership of the stock and that Florida succession statutes should affect the outcome.

## Issues

1. Does a beneficiary designation for an employer retirement plan control ownership of stock that was distributed to the employee during life and later held in the employee’s name at death?
2. In a Louisiana succession for a decedent domiciled in Louisiana, did the trial court err by applying Florida law (and/or refusing to consider Florida probate statutes) rather than performing the proper Louisiana choice-of-law analysis for ownership and devolution of the stock?

## Decision

- The court of appeal reversed the judgment that recognized the daughters as the sole owners of the stock and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court rejected Ruth’s argument that the retirement-plan beneficiary designation governed the stock after the plan account was closed and the assets were distributed to John during his lifetime.
- The court held that the trial court’s approach to Florida law was erroneous in a Louisiana succession involving movable property owned by a decedent domiciled in Louisiana, and the matter required reconsideration under the proper Louisiana legal framework.
- The court did not finally determine the stock’s characterization (separate/community/quasi-community) or allocate final ownership shares, leaving those determinations for the trial court on remand.

## Legal Principles

- A beneficiary designation generally governs disposition of assets that remain in the retirement plan at the participant’s death; it does not by itself operate as a transfer device for property that was distributed from the plan during the participant’s lifetime and thereafter held individually.
- In a Louisiana succession, rights in a decedent’s movable property (such as corporate stock) are generally governed by Louisiana law when the decedent was domiciled in Louisiana at death, subject to Louisiana conflict-of-laws rules.
- A court must apply the correct choice-of-law rules before relying on another state’s statutes to determine ownership and succession rights in movables, and must correctly characterize the property under the governing law before placing parties in possession.

## Conclusion

In *In re Succession of Hubbard*, the Louisiana First Circuit reversed a judgment awarding all Jacobs stock to the decedent’s daughters and sent the case back to the trial court. The court held that John Hubbard’s retirement-plan beneficiary designation did not control stock that had been distributed to him years before his death and remained titled in his name, and it directed the trial court to reassess ownership and succession rights under the correct Louisiana choice-of-law and property-characterization rules.


In re Succession of Hubbard, 803 So. 2d 1074 (2001)