## Facts

- A wife and husband were married for about 22 years and had two children.
- During the marriage, the husband typically turned over his earnings to the wife, who handled household finances, paid bills, and made investments.
- The wife also worked and contributed her earnings and rental income from an apartment toward family expenses.
- Beginning in 1956, the husband began a “crash” savings plan, stating it was for “our latter days” and “for the two of us.”
- Thereafter, family expenses were paid primarily from the wife’s income, rental income, and part of the husband’s pay; the remainder of the husband’s salary was invested.
- The accumulated savings and acquired assets were held exclusively in the husband’s name and were purchased with his earnings.
- After a foreign divorce, the parties agreed the pending New York action would abate as to divorce but continue as to property claims.
- The wife sued seeking a declaration that she owned one-half of certain real and personal property titled solely in the husband’s name, seeking imposition of a constructive trust.

## Issues

1. Whether a spouse states a constructive-trust claim to one-half of assets titled solely in the other spouse’s name when the assets were acquired from the title-holding spouse’s earnings and the claimant spouse primarily contributed by paying family expenses.
2. Whether generalized statements that savings were for “our latter days” or “for the two of us” sufficiently allege a promise and detrimental reliance amounting to actual or constructive fraud.

## Decision

- The Appellate Division affirmed the order and judgment dismissing the wife’s complaint.
- The court held the pleaded and proven facts were insufficient to warrant a constructive trust over one-half of the husband’s separately titled savings and investments.
- The court emphasized the disputed funds “have always been” the husband’s and were not property the wife transferred to him.

## Legal Principles

- A constructive trust may be imposed where, because of a confidential relationship, one party relies on another’s promise, is induced to act to their detriment, and the other party is unjustly enriched through abuse of the relationship amounting to actual or constructive fraud.
- In marital disputes, the existence of a confidential relationship alone is insufficient; the claimant must show a clear promise plus a transfer or other detrimental reliance causally tied to that promise.
- Payment of ordinary family and household expenses from one spouse’s earnings, without a transfer of the disputed property or legally cognizable reliance induced by a promise to share title, does not establish unjust enrichment warranting a constructive trust over assets acquired and held in the other spouse’s name.

## Conclusion

The court rejected the wife’s attempt to obtain a one-half interest in the husband’s separately titled savings and investments through a constructive trust, concluding that her contributions to family support and the husband’s generalized statements about shared future benefit did not establish the required promise, transfer or detrimental reliance, and fraud-like unjust enrichment.


Wirth v. Wirth, 38 A.D.2d 611 (N.Y. App. Div. 3d Dep’t 1971)