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Community Property Baseball Team: Husband Gets Half the Players (Chosen Blindly or Randomly, Of Course) and Wife Gets the Other Half?

By Janet Langjahr

Some property acquired during a marriage is easier to split up than other property.

One recently separated couple is learning that now.

Wife has served as chief executive of a professional baseball team acquired during the long-term marriage.

Since the split, Husband has allegedly purported to fire Wife … and assert sole ownership of the team.

Wife, a non-practicing attorney, is reportedly not taking the termination lying down. Quite the contrary, she is rumored to be exploring a takeover.

Their state of residence, California, is a community property state though.

In general, that means that all property acquired by either during the marriage is split 50/50.

Absent a prenuptial agreement (prenup) or postnuptial agreement (postnup), however, that would suggest that both spouses, not just Husband, own the team.

Dividing a major league baseball team of living, breathing people is a bit different from dividing inanimate objects, which neither the objects nor third parties much care about.

In this dispute, there are many opinions being formed and some being expressed – publicly. Although, ultimately, the only opinion that will count is that of the presiding family court judge.

Read more in this Contra Costa [CA] Times article: Jamie McCourt faces uphill fight in court of public opinion and this Los Angeles Times article: Dodgers’ owner Frank McCourt fires wife Jamie.

Full post as published by Florida Divorce - Child Custody - Domestic Abuse Law on October 26, 2009 (boomark / email).