## Facts

- Richard Martin and Mary Martin married in 1959 and spent much of their marriage living and traveling outside Arizona, including overseas, due to Richard’s employment.
- In August 1979, the couple moved to California and became domiciled there.
- The Martins purchased a home in Prescott, Arizona, as a planned retirement residence.
- In December 1979, Mary moved into the Prescott home and began living separately from Richard.
- Richard remained in California, continued working there, and continued providing financial support to Mary, while initially intending to relocate to Arizona when he retired.
- In 1982, before Richard moved to Arizona, Mary filed for dissolution in Arizona.
- In the Arizona dissolution proceedings, Richard argued that California law governed characterization of his earnings because he remained a California domiciliary and earned his wages in California.
- Richard also argued that, under California law, earnings acquired after the spouses live separate and apart are the earning spouse’s separate property rather than community property.
- The Arizona trial court applied Arizona community-property law and ruled that Richard’s earnings from the time of the parties’ separation until dissolution were community-property earnings.
- Richard appealed from the characterization of his post-separation earnings.

## Issues

1. In an Arizona dissolution, must the court apply California law—rather than Arizona law—to determine whether a spouse’s post-separation earnings, earned in California while the spouse remained domiciled there, are community or separate property?

## Decision

- The Arizona Supreme Court held that California law governed the characterization of Richard’s post-separation earnings earned in California while the parties’ marital domicile remained in California.
- The Court rejected the trial court’s blanket application of Arizona law to treat those earnings as community property.
- The Court reversed the trial court’s characterization of Richard’s post-separation earnings and remanded for further proceedings consistent with applying California law to that income.

## Legal Principles

- For marital property characterization, the law of the state with the most substantial connection to the acquisition of the property—commonly the spouses’ domicile at the time of acquisition—may control, even if the dissolution is filed in a different forum state.
- An Arizona dissolution court may be required to apply another state’s community-property rules to characterize and divide property when that other state’s law governs the property interest.
- Under California law, earnings acquired after spouses are living separate and apart are treated as the earning spouse’s separate property, not community property.

## Conclusion

The Arizona Supreme Court concluded that the trial court erred by applying Arizona community-property law to wages Richard earned in California after the parties began living separately; because California was the marital domicile and the place where the earnings were generated, California law controlled their characterization, requiring reversal and remand to treat those post-separation earnings as Richard’s separate property under California’s separation-earnings rule.


Marriage of Martin, 752 P.2d 1026 (1986)