Valladares v. Valladares

The majority’s seductively simple semantic solution is, in my view, both so unfair as to be presumptively contrary to the Legislature’s intent, if not unconstitutional, and unrealistic in its analysis of that intent.

Its unfairness is revealed more by what it does not say than by what it does, for it makes no mention at all of what the result would be had Mrs. Valladares commenced an *394independent action rather than asserted a counterclaim.1 Clearly such an action would be, within the language of part A of section 236, an “action commenced on or after such effective date” and, within the…