WA APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS "MARRIAGELIKE DISTRIBUTION OF PROPERTY: From the Associated Press

A ruling that same-sex couples are subject to the same principles as married couples in disputes over joint assets when they separate has been upheld by the state Court of Appeals.

Legal marriage rights are irrelevant in the case arising from the breakup of a 10-year relationship between Julia Robertson and Linda Gormley, a three-judge panel of the court's Division III in Spokane ruled Tuesday.
"Whether same-sex couples can legally marry is for the Legislature to decide," Judge Kenneth H. Kato wrote, "but the rule that courts must 'examine the (meretricious) relationship and the property accumulations and make a just and equitable disposition of the property' is a judicial, not a legislative, extension of the rights and protections of marriage to an intimate, unmarried couple."
Concurring in the decision was Judge John A. Schultheis.

The third member of the panel, Judge Stephen M. Brown, concurred in the outcome but asserted that the case should have been considered "a property dispute filed as a civil suit ... not a domestic relations case." The majority ruling, Brown wrote, strayed "into policy making best left to the Legislature."
Lawyers on both sides said it was the first time a Washington state appellate court had ruled directly on whether property division rules that cover divorces also apply in the breakup of same-sex couples.

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posted by Eve at 5:53 PM VOTE

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