## Facts

- A testator created a spendthrift trust placing a 640-acre farm in trust for grandchildren, naming a trustee with broad authority to manage, sell, and distribute income in the trustee’s discretion.
- The wife, a grandchild-beneficiary, married the husband during the existence of a Louisiana community-property regime.
- During the marriage, the wife received about $11,913 in trust income distributions, spent most of it on clothing and household expenses, and retained about $555 at divorce.
- The trustee held about $11,400 in undistributed trust income in which the wife had an interest.
- The wife did not execute a statutory declaration to reserve “fruits” of separate property as separate.
- In the divorce-related property dispute, the husband claimed the distributed and undistributed trust income accrued during the marriage were community property.
- The wife claimed the trust income was her separate property and sought reimbursement for alleged separate-fund expenditures on community expenses.

## Issues

1. Whether trust income distributed to, and accrued for, a spouse-beneficiary during marriage is community property as “fruits” of the spouse’s separate property interest, or the spouse’s separate property where the trustee owns the corpus.
2. Whether the wife was entitled to reimbursement for spending her separate trust distributions on marital living expenses.

## Decision

- The Louisiana Supreme Court held the trust income distributed to the wife during marriage was her separate property.
- The Court likewise treated undistributed income held by the trustee during the marriage as not belonging to the community.
- The Court reversed the court of appeal’s classification of trust income as community property.
- The Court denied the wife’s reimbursement claim, concluding her expenditures did not qualify for restitution.

## Legal Principles

- Trust distributions to a spouse-beneficiary are not “fruits” of the spouse’s separate property when the trustee, not the beneficiary, owns the trust corpus and controls income under the trust instrument.
- The statutory rule converting fruits of a spouse’s separate property to community property (absent a declaration reserving fruits) does not apply when the spouse lacks ownership of the producing property.
- Reimbursement for a spouse’s separate-property expenditures requires a showing that the spending enhanced the community estate or satisfied community obligations in a manner recognized by reimbursement rules.
- Routine consumptive spending for clothing and household expenses is generally not reimbursable as restitution because it does not enhance the community and is treated as voluntary support of marital living expenses.

## Conclusion

The court classified both distributed and undistributed income from a trustee-owned spendthrift trust as the wife’s separate property and rejected reimbursement where her separate funds were used for ordinary marital consumption rather than to enhance or preserve the community estate.


Reynolds v. Reynolds, 388 So. 2d 1135 (La. 1980)