Corder

In a consolidated wrongful death action, one defendant settled with the decedent’s wife and his adult daughter for an unapportioned lump sum of $1.1 million, and the two nonsettling defendants ultimately prevailed at trial. At a subsequent court proceeding, the wife and the daughter offered evidence pertaining to the allocation of the settlement proceeds. Based on testimony from third party witnesses claiming the decedent was unhappy in his marriage and intended to get a divorce, the trial court found the marriage was “on the verge of ending,” even though there was no evidence the decedent had actually separated from his wife or filed for a legal separation or a marital dissolution. The court then allocated 90 percent of the settlement proceeds to the decedent’s daughter and 10 percent to the wife. We granted the wife’s petition for review, which challenged the trial court’s judgment and the Court of Appeal’s affirmance of that judgment.

We conclude, contrary to the wife’s assertions, that the trial court did not violate statutory law or act in excess of jurisdiction in undertaking to apportion the settlement proceeds. We also find the court was not required to allocate…