FLEMING V. SPENCER 110 Wash.App. 107 (2002) CASE BRIEF

FLEMING V. SPENCER

110 Wash.App. 107 (2002)

NATURE OF THE CASE: Spencer (D) appealed a decision to award certain real property to Fleming (P) D's companion for many years.

FACTS: P and D became intimate in 1982, while D was separated but not yet divorced from his wife. D purchased real property in Sultan with borrowed money for the down payment and the balance carried on a real estate contract. D rented the Sultan property out for year before moving to it in 1984. P moved to the Sultan property the same year. D 'paid off' the property entirely by the joint earnings of the parties. D went to work in Alaska at various times. D became disabled in 1997 and has collected disability benefits since then. P worked intermittently during the 1980s by milking cows, managing a convenience store in Monroe and working at a Safeway grocery store. P eventually graduated from Seattle University. She enrolled in the Thomas Cooley Law School for one year between 1996 to 1997 and lived in Michigan during that time. They filed joint income tax returns throughout the 1990s, and in 1994, named each other executor and heir to any property remaining after specific bequests. In October 1994, D quitclaimed the Sultan property to P to shelter it from a potential lawsuit. Over six years later, D had P quitclaim the property back to him in December 1998. The parties ceased being intimate in 1997. They continued to live together, but in separate parts of the house. D had become religious and felt that he was still married to his first wife. D would not let P clear a field on the Sultan property for horses and a garden. P sued D for dissolution of their meretricious relationship. The court found that P and D maintained a meretricious relationship from 1983 to 1997 and distributed the property acquired during that time frame. D appealed.

ISSUE:

RULE OF LAW:

HOLDING AND DECISION:

LEGAL ANALYSIS:

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