## Facts

- Martha Davis Mock (wife) and Robert James Mock (husband) married in 1986 and had two children.
- Throughout the marriage, both worked and generally kept separate bank and credit-card accounts while sharing expenses.
- Martha held a savings account in her name with a balance of $39,654 at divorce.
- Martha admitted making regular $150 paycheck deposits into the account and agreed those deposits were community funds.
- Martha testified her father gave her about $10,000 annually (by check or other transfers) and claimed she deposited gift checks into the same savings account, but she could not specify how many checks or amounts were deposited into that account.
- Martha used account funds to buy $22,000 in education funds for the children.
- Martha offered no bank statements, deposit slips, or copies of gift checks to trace the account balance to separate property.
- Robert incurred substantial credit-card debt during the marriage in accounts solely in his name.
- The divorce decree treated the savings account as community property and awarded Robert $29,827 from it, and it allocated roughly half of the credit-card debt to Martha.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred by characterizing Martha’s savings account as community property rather than her separate property derived from gifts.
2. Whether the trial court erred by ordering Martha to pay a portion of credit-card debts incurred in Robert’s name during the marriage.

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed the divorce decree.
- The court held Martha did not rebut the community-property presumption by clear and convincing evidence because she failed to trace the account balance to separate-property gifts.
- The court held the trial court acted within its discretion in allocating to Martha a portion of credit-card debts incurred during the marriage.

## Legal Principles

- Property possessed at divorce is presumed community property; a spouse claiming separate property must prove separate character by clear and convincing evidence.
- Separate property includes property acquired during marriage by gift, but commingling requires tracing to identify the separate component.
- Generalized, unquantified testimony about gifts and deposits, without documentary tracing, may be insufficient to overcome the community-property presumption for a commingled account.
- Debts incurred during marriage are generally treated as community obligations for purposes of division.
- In a divorce, the trial court has broad discretion to divide community assets and liabilities in a just and right manner; a spouse’s lack of knowledge of the other spouse’s credit-card debts does not, standing alone, bar allocation of those debts in the property division.

## Conclusion

The appellate court affirmed the property and debt division because the wife failed to provide clear and convincing tracing evidence to classify the commingled savings-account balance as separate property, and the trial court had discretion to allocate credit-card debts incurred during the marriage as part of a just and right division.


Mock v. Mock, 216 S.W.3d 370 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2006)