WARREN VS. WARREN (DIVORCE PROPERTY & ALIMONY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

This per curiam opinion affirms a defense judgment in an action by a long-term unmarried cohabitant seeking a share of her former partner's property under constructive/resulting trust, meretricious/common-law/putative spouse, partnership, joint venture, and contract theories. The court declined to reach most of appellant's twenty assignments of error for failure to cite relevant authority, citing Cummings v. Tinkle, 91 Nev. 548, 539 P.2d 1213 (1975). On the meretricious-spouse/implied-partnership claim, appellant invoked Marvin v. Marvin, 557 P.2d 106 (Cal. 1976), under which courts may enforce express contracts between nonmarital partners and, absent an express contract, inquire into the parties' conduct for an implied contract, partnership, joint venture, or other tacit understanding, and may employ quantum meruit or constructive/resulting trust remedies. The court did not adopt or reject Marvin; it held that the claim turned on disputed fact. Because the evidence on the alleged agreement to pool funds and form a partnership was conflicting, and the district court as trier of fact is the sole judge of witness credibility, the Supreme Court declined to disturb the findings that appellant was an employee, that the parties never agreed to pool income, and that no partnership, joint venture, common-law, or putative marriage existed. Ormachea v. Ormachea, 67 Nev. 273, 217 P.2d 355 (1950). On the procedural issue, the court held the district court did not abuse its discretion under NRCP 36(a) in granting respondent leave to answer requests for admissions after commencement of trial, where respondent's prior counsel had withdrawn. Appellant offered no authority showing an abuse of discretion and failed to demonstrate prejudice, having received the answers more than a month before the bulk of the testimony and having had ample opportunity to prepare and present her proof of foreign law and of a putative or common-law marriage. Affirmed.

In plain language

Sybil Page Warren and the man she sued were entertainers who met in Hong Kong in 1963, became romantically involved, and traveled and lived together around the world for about eight and a half years without ever marrying. When the relationship ended, Sybil sued to recover half of his assets. She claimed the two of them had agreed to pool their money and that she was entitled to property rights as a kind of unmarried spouse or business partner, relying on causes of action for constructive trust, resulting trust, meretricious/common law/putative spouse rights, partnership, joint venture, and contract. Her main argument leaned on the then-recent California decision Marvin v. Marvin, which allowed unmarried partners to enforce agreements to share property. But there was a key difference: the evidence about the couple's finances was contradictory. She said they agreed to pool their resources; he said she was simply a salaried employee and there was no agreement to combine funds. The trial court believed him, finding that the parties never held themselves out as married, never agreed to pool income, kept separate bank accounts and investments, and never formed a partnership or joint venture. Sybil raised twenty issues on appeal, but the Nevada Supreme Court declined to consider most of them because she cited no relevant legal authority to support her claims of error. On the two issues it did address, the court affirmed. First, because the financial evidence was genuinely in conflict, and because the trial judge - as the person who heard the witnesses - is the sole judge of credibility, the Supreme Court would not second-guess the finding that there was no agreement to pool funds or form a partnership. Even assuming Marvin's approach applied, her theory depended on the trial court accepting her version of the facts, and it did not. Second, the court found no error in the trial judge allowing the other side extra time to answer requests for admissions after his attorney had withdrawn; trial courts have discretion to extend that deadline, she showed no abuse of that discretion, and she could not show she was prejudiced because she had more than a month before the bulk of the trial to prepare her proof and simply failed to prove her claims. The judgment was affirmed.