## Facts

- Frank Vasquez and Robert Awrey Schwerzler lived together in rural Washington for roughly 26–28 years and worked together in a shared business.
- Much of the major property (home, vehicles, insurance policy, and a checking account) was titled solely in Schwerzler’s name.
- Schwerzler died intestate, and his estate was administered by Joseph Hawthorne as personal representative.
- Vasquez filed a creditor’s claim against the estate seeking an equitable share of property, asserting an “economic community” based on theories including meretricious relationship, implied partnership, and equitable trust.
- The estate denied the claim and submitted affidavits disputing the relationship’s character and the parties’ financial arrangements; Vasquez submitted contrary affidavits describing a long-term intimate, cohabiting relationship with pooled efforts.

## Issues

1. Whether summary judgment was proper on the existence of a meretricious relationship and the resulting property allocation where affidavits created disputed issues of material fact.
2. Whether Washington’s equitable meretricious-relationship doctrine is categorically limited to opposite-sex couples.

## Decision

- The Washington Supreme Court held the trial court erred by granting summary judgment because the record contained material factual disputes and was inadequate to decide the claim as a matter of law.
- The Court held the Court of Appeals also erred by reaching the doctrinal merits on the same incomplete summary-judgment record.
- The Court rejected a categorical rule excluding same-sex couples from the meretricious-relationship doctrine, concluding the doctrine applies without discrimination based on sex or sexual orientation.
- The Court vacated the Court of Appeals’ decision and remanded to the superior court for trial.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment is improper when conflicting evidence presents genuine issues of material fact, particularly on fact-intensive equitable claims concerning the parties’ relationship, intent, and treatment of property.
- The meretricious-relationship doctrine is an equitable property-distribution doctrine aimed at preventing unjust enrichment between unmarried cohabitants; it is not a mechanism for conferring marital status.
- Washington’s meretricious-relationship doctrine is gender- and orientation-neutral; same-sex partners may invoke it on the same terms as opposite-sex partners.

## Conclusion

The court required trial resolution of disputed facts surrounding the parties’ relationship and property arrangements, while clarifying that Washington’s equitable meretricious-relationship doctrine is available to same-sex and opposite-sex couples alike.


Vasquez v. Hawthorne, 33 P.3d 735 (Wash. 2001)