Mearns v. Scharbach

RCW 11.07.010 governs nonprobate assets upon dissolution or invalidation of marriage and revokes beneficiary designations naming the former spouse. This statute operates under the legal fiction that the former spouse, having died at the entry of the decree, does not survive the decedent. In re Estate of Egelhoff, 139 Wn.2d 557, 575, 989 P.2d 80 (1999), cert. granted, 520 U.S. 1242 (2000). Applying RCW 11.07.010, the trial court here granted summary judgment awarding life insurance proceeds to the insured’s children, Joel and Nanette Mearns,1 *502rather than the insured’s former spouse, Christine…