Kulchar v. Kulchar
California Supreme Court
1 Cal. 3d 467, 82 Cal. Rptr. 489, 462 P.2d 17 (1969)
- Written by Mary Phelan D'Isa, JD
Facts
Husband and wife secured an interlocutory decree of divorce that included the disposition of the couple’s community and separate property. The decree provided that the husband would be responsible for any taxes due prior to a certain year. After the divorce proceeding, the husband received a tax bill for income on property held separately by his wife that accumulated during the marriage. The husband moved to modify the decree to relieve him of any liability for taxes on income from that property on grounds of extrinsic fraud and extrinsic mistake. One of the husband’s attorneys failed to investigate the tax liability on the property after the wife stated that an attorney known to the husband’s attorney advised her that the income on the property was not taxable. The trial court granted the husband’s request for relief and struck the tax-liability provision in the decree “because of the mutual mistake of the parties.” The wife appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Traynor, C.J.)
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