In Re the Estate of Hoffman

KONENKAMP, Justice.

[¶ 1.] By statute in South Dakota, an automatic restraining order forbids divorcing spouses from transferring, encumbering, concealing, dissipating, or disposing of any marital asset. While her divorce was pending, the wife, knowing that she was terminally ill, conveyed real and personal marital property held in joint tenancy to herself as a tenant in common. She did this to prevent her estranged spouse from receiving all the marital property as a surviving joint tenant. When her will was later probated, the circuit court invalidated the conveyances as a violation of the…