Stearns v. Martens

OPINION

Kem Thompson Frost, Chief Justice

This is an appeal from a divorce decree following a jury trial on one issue and a bench trial on other issues. The issue at the jury trial was whether the stock of a corporation was community property or the separate property of either spouse. After the wife rested her case-in-chief and before the husband offered evidence in his case-in-chief, the trial court granted a directed verdict that forty-nine percent of the shares were the wife’s separate property. The trial court based its decree on the jury’s verdict that the remaining shares were community…