No. Property divided in a separate maintenance judgment is off the table if a divorce follows.
The Rule
Goodman v. Goodman, 254 Ga. 703 (1985), states it plainly: “Once separated by judicial determination in a separate maintenance judgment, property becomes part of the separate estate of the party to whom it is awarded and it is not thereafter subject to equitable division in a later divorce action.”
It Cuts Both Ways
The facts show why that matters. A 1980 separate maintenance judgment gave the wife the marital home and its furnishings, a car, and $1,600 per month, and provided that each party would keep “permanent possession, use and ownership of all personalty now in his or her possession.”
When the husband filed for divorce in 1983, he tried to claim part of the proceeds from her sale of the house. He lost. She then tried to reach his profit sharing trust, pension, and stock option plans, arguing those were still marital property.
She lost too. Having relied on the judgment to keep the house, the Court held, “the wife will not be permitted to insist that property simultaneously awarded her husband is nevertheless subject to equitable division upon divorce.”
Why the Court Cares
The reasoning is about credit. “[C]reditors may look to the property division in a separate maintenance judgment, or its actual possession by a separated spouse, in extending credit to such spouse.” Reopening the division later would undermine that, and, as the Court noted, the wife could not have sold the house at all if it had remained subject to division.
The Court left one question open: what happens where the earlier judgment awarded only periodic payments and never divided property.
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