In Re the Marriage of Weaver

Gladys I. Weaver (Gladys) appeals from that portion of a judgment of dissolution of marriage which awarded to her former husband, James T. Weaver (James), a community property interest in the home in which the parties had resided during their marriage. The award was based upon a finding by the trial court that Gladys had orally transmuted the home into community property, the home having originally been her separate property. As we conclude that the court applied the wrong standard of proof, we reverse the judgment and remand for a new trial.

Factual and Procedural Background

Gladys and James married in March 1949. They had been married 39 years when they separated in May 1988. During their years of marriage, they lived in a home on Victoria Avenue in the City of Los Angeles, which they initially shared with Gladys’s parents.

The property had been acquired by Gladys and her parents as joint tenants in 1944, before Gladys and James married. It was a new home at that time. James, who contributed no part of the purchase price, moved into the home shortly after he and Gladys married. Gladys’s mother died in 1957 and her father died in February 1960. As the surviving joint…