## Facts

- David and Kimi Lindemann married in 1978, separated in 1981, and dissolved their marriage in 1982.
- Shortly after dissolution, David began an auto body repair business, later keeping a separate business account and ultimately incorporating the business in 1993.
- In 1985, David and Kimi resumed living together without remarrying and cohabited for about ten years, raising their children and generally treating their finances and property as shared.
- During cohabitation, David worked full-time and long hours in the auto body business; Kimi worked outside the business and did not contribute labor to it.
- Over the cohabitation period, the business grew substantially in value (from a small operation to a corporation valued at roughly $219,000), and David sometimes used business funds to pay joint living expenses.
- After the relationship ended in 1995, Kimi sought equitable division of property and liabilities arising from the nonmarital relationship, including a share of the business’s increased value.
- The trial court found the net increase in the business’s value during cohabitation resulted solely from David’s labor and ordered David to reimburse Kimi for one-half of that increase.
- David appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether, upon termination of a stable, marriage-like but nonmarital relationship, a court may equitably award one partner a share of the increase in value of the other partner’s separate business.
2. Whether substantial evidence supported the finding that the business’s net increase in value during cohabitation was attributable solely to David’s labor rather than to inherent business value or external forces.
3. Whether David could treat some portion of his labor during cohabitation as “separate” to prevent the relationship from sharing in the business’s growth.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed.
- The trial court properly applied community-property concepts by analogy to a quasi-marital relationship, while limiting distribution to property acquired through efforts during the relationship.
- Substantial evidence supported the finding that the increase in business value during cohabitation was due solely to David’s labor, and David failed to show any portion of the increase was inherent to the business or caused by outside forces.
- The reimbursement award granting Kimi one-half of the increase was a proper exercise of equitable discretion.

## Legal Principles

- When a stable, marriage-like nonmarital relationship ends, courts may analogize to community-property principles to achieve an equitable distribution.
- In such a nonmarital relationship, preexisting separate property is not itself subject to division; only property (or value) acquired through the parties’ efforts during the relationship may be distributed.
- Increases in value of one partner’s separate property may be subject to equitable allocation to the extent the increase is attributable to that partner’s labor performed during the relationship.
- A party resisting allocation of an increase in separate-property value must present a basis to attribute some portion of the increase to inherent value or external forces rather than labor.

## Conclusion

The court upheld an equitable reimbursement award requiring a business owner to pay his former cohabiting partner one-half of the business’s increased value during their long-term quasi-marital relationship because the increase was found to result solely from his labor during that period.


Lindemann v. Lindemann, 92 Wash. App. 64, 960 P.2d 966 (Wash. Ct. App. 1998)