## Facts

- A husband and wife married in Cuba in 1936 and lived there until 1960 under a Cuban community-property (ganancial) regime.
- The husband worked for a Florida corporation, Okeelanta Sugar Refinery, Inc., while remaining domiciled in Cuba for substantial periods before the couple jointly moved to Florida.
- During the marriage, the husband acquired blocks of Okeelanta stock (5,000 shares in 1952 and 5,000 shares in 1958), later increased to 100,000 shares after a 10-for-1 split in 1961.
- The husband sold the stock and received an $810,000 promissory note; he held the note at his death in 1963.
- The husband’s children from a prior marriage sought a declaratory judgment that the promissory note was the husband’s separate property and thus part of his probate estate to be distributed under Florida intestacy.
- The widow asserted a vested marital interest, arguing the stock (and the note as its proceeds) was community property under Cuban law, or otherwise subject to recognition in Florida.

## Issues

1. Whether spouses’ interests in movable property acquired during marriage were determined by the law of the matrimonial domicile at acquisition (Cuba) or by Florida law because the corporation and transactions were connected to Florida.
2. Whether the Okeelanta stock acquired during the marriage, and the $810,000 note traceable to its sale, constituted community property in which the widow held an undivided one-half interest.
3. Whether Florida law would recognize the widow’s beneficial share in property titled solely in the husband’s name through a resulting trust and permit tracing into substituted proceeds.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the declaratory decree that treated the promissory note as entirely the decedent’s separate property.
- The court held that Cuban law, as the law of the matrimonial domicile when the property was acquired, governed the spouses’ respective ownership interests.
- Applying Cuban community-property principles, the court treated the stock as community property acquired during marriage, giving the widow a vested one-half interest.
- The court further held that Florida resulting-trust doctrine could recognize the widow’s beneficial interest where title was in the husband alone, and that the interest followed the proceeds into the promissory note.

## Legal Principles

- Spouses’ ownership interests in movable property acquired during marriage are determined by the law of the matrimonial domicile at the time of acquisition.
- Under Cuban community-property law as applied, property acquired during marriage with marital earnings is presumed community property absent a statutory exception, and each spouse holds an undivided one-half interest.
- Under Florida law, when title is taken in the husband’s name but part of the consideration equitably belongs to the wife, a resulting trust arises in the wife’s favor to the extent her share of the consideration was used.
- A spouse’s community or equitable interest is traceable into substituted property; conversion of an asset into proceeds (including a promissory note) does not extinguish the spouse’s fractional interest.

## Conclusion

The court determined that the widow had a vested one-half marital interest in stock acquired during the Cuban matrimonial domicile and that Florida equity would recognize and trace that interest into the promissory note received from the stock’s sale, defeating the claim that the note was solely the decedent’s separate estate.


Quintana v. Ordono, 195 So. 2d 577 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 3d Dist. 1967)