## Facts

- Husband and Wife married in New Mexico on May 14, 1993.
- The parties disputed when they separated; the trial court declined to find a separation date.
- While still married to Husband, Wife participated in a marriage ceremony in Colorado on September 22, 1999 with Paul Orozco.
- Wife obtained the Colorado marriage license using false identifying information and represented she was widowed and that her prior husband had died.
- Orozco died on October 21, 2002.
- The trial court made no findings on whether Wife cohabited with Orozco or on the parties’ living arrangements between 1999 and the 2003 divorce filing.
- The parties disputed when Husband learned of the bigamous marriage; the trial court made no finding on Husband’s knowledge.
- In the divorce, the trial court terminated Wife’s interest in Husband’s retirement benefits as of the date of Wife’s 1999 Colorado ceremony; Wife appealed that cut-off.

## Issues

1. Whether a spouse’s bigamous marriage, by itself, justifies forfeiture or termination of that spouse’s community-property rights in the other spouse’s retirement benefits accrued after the bigamous marriage.
2. What standard governs any equitable forfeiture of community-property rights based on bigamy, and what factual findings are required to apply it.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals vacated the retirement-benefits cut-off and remanded.
- The court held that bigamy alone is insufficient to deprive a spouse of community-property rights.
- The court adopted a narrow equitable forfeiture rule: a bigamous spouse may be deprived of community-property rights only when the circumstances “shock the conscience” of the court.
- Because the trial court made no findings on key facts relevant to the equitable inquiry, further fact-finding and reconsideration were required on remand.

## Legal Principles

- Community property acquired during marriage is generally subject to division without using property allocation as a broad sanction for marital misconduct.
- Bigamy does not automatically terminate community-property rights.
- Equitable forfeiture of a bigamous spouse’s community-property rights is permitted only in exceptional cases where the facts, viewed in context, “shock the conscience” of the court.
- Application of the “shock the conscience” standard requires specific findings tied to the parties’ circumstances (including the nature and consequences of the conduct and other context-specific facts).

## Conclusion

The court rejected an automatic forfeiture rule based on bigamy and required that any deprivation of community-property rights be limited to extraordinary, fact-specific circumstances that “shock the conscience,” necessitating remand for additional findings and a re-evaluated retirement-benefits division.


Medina v. Medina, 139 N.M. 309, 131 P.3d 696 (N.M. Ct. App. 2006)