Slicker v. Slicker
Dallas Court of Appeals, No. 05-13-01762-CV (May 21, 2015)
Chief Justice Wright (Opinion) and Justices Fillmore and O’Neill
William and Phyllis Slicker were married for almost 40 years, with William controlling management of the community estate. Phyllis did not work during the marriage except in her husband’s business. She was not compensated for that work. Although William failed to comply with discovery requests, the record revealed there were large sums of community property for which he could not account, and a pattern of manipulating the marital estate so that certain items would be characterized as his separate property rather than community property. Phyllis alleged fraud on the community by William, and requested that the community estate be reconstituted pursuant to Texas Family Code § 7.009 in order for the court to make a fair and equitable division of the marital estate. The Court of Appeals found the trial court did not abuse its discretion in (i) reconstituting the community estate in the amount of $900,000 based on William’s waste and fraud, and (ii) awarding Phyllis a $275,000 judgment in that regard. The appeals court’s opinion contains a helpful analysis and discussion of relatively new Texas Family Code § 7.009, which was enacted in 2011 to provide for the reconstitution of the community estate if the trier of fact finds actual or constructive fraud on the community has occurred.
The court also affirmed the award of spousal maintenance of $3500 per month for ten years to be paid by William to Phyllis. Although 67-year-old Phyllis had taken a computer course and obtained some employment while the divorce was pending, she was unable to meet her reasonable minimum needs from her only source of income, a monthly social security payment of $665. The Court noted that the determination whether a spouse can meet his or her minimum needs is to be made based on the circumstances at the time the divorce is granted, and not based on whether he or she could do so at some point in the future. The court also held that “minimum reasonable needs” is not defined by the Texas Family Code § 8.051 and must be determined on a case-by-case basis.
