Louisiana Community Property – A Divorce Lawyer Example

Louisiana uses what a divorce lawyer might term a “community property regime” framework in determining what property belongs to which spouse following the end of their marriage.  There are a handful of other states that also use community property regimes, including California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Wisconsin, Idaho, Washington, and Nevada.  The basic gist of community property regimes is that whatever property or value that the spouses earn or create while they are married to each other is shared evenly between them.  That does not mean however that everything someone owns also belongs to their spouse if they are married.  Community property regime states (or Louisiana at least) also have separate property.  A divorce lawyer generally thinks of this as something that is not part of the community property regime and thus is not divided evenly.

Let’s use an example.  Say Frank and Beth have been married for twenty years.  They have two kids, a dog, and a cat.  While they are married, Frank writes a movie script.  At first it is just a joke; kind of a pet project of Frank’s that he only works on during the weekends.  But finally after two long years of work, Frank finishes the script.  He has a friend who works at a movie studio in Hollywood, and just for fun he emails the script to this friend.  Frank’s friend thinks that the script really has potential, and so he hands it off to an agent that he knows.

A few months pass.  Frank has not heard anything, and so he thinks that probably the script was not liked by anyone “in the business.”  But then, one day, the phone rings.  It is the agent who Frank’s friend knows.  The agent says that he has found a buyer for the script, and that the buyer is willing to pay one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it.  Frank is super excited, and he quickly agrees to sell all of the rights to his script away. 

Fast forward a few years later.  Frank and Beth have been arguing constantly, their kids are off to college, and the family dog and cat have both passed away.  Beth decides to get a divorce lawyer.  During the course of the proceedings, it becomes pretty clear that they are not going to be able to decide on how to divide up their community property.  One particular bone of contention between them is proceeds from the sale of the script.  Frank put all the money he got from the sale into a separate bank account, where it has been gathering interest.  Frank was hoping to use this money when he retires.

Unfortunately for Frank, the proceeds from the script are probably going to be considered community property by both a divorce lawyer and a Louisiana court.  This is because the script was the product of his work during the course of his marriage to Beth.  (One note to this is that copyrights are generally not community, but their proceeds may be.)

Will Beaumont practices law in New Orleans.  The above is just information and not legal advice.