[WSBAPT] legal separation

[ak at seattle-silvalaw.com]

Law Office of
F.ANDREKITA SILVA
_______________________________________________________

July 28, 2023

Robert,

You said your client was “legally separated.” Do you mean that client 
filed a petition for LS and a decree of LS was issued?

If there is a decree of legal separation, wife is still wife.  Other 
spouse can’t go off and marry someone else.  When a couple files for 
divorce, if someone dies during the divorce proceeding, even if there 
was already a trial but not final orders,  the action abates. It’s as if 
no one had filed anything.  So, LS wife who never said marriage was 
irretrievably broken can’t be any worse off than someone who at one 
point alleged the marriage WAS irretrievably broken.

Usually, a decree of LS will divide all assets. A decree of LS probably 
states whether or not wife has interest in retirement or if it became 
H’s separate property.  If husband doesn’t have a Will, then I think 
separate property goes according to RCW intestate statutes, so were 
there children? If there was a Will, the Will controls. It will depend 
on the language in the Will.

The right to control disposition of remains is addressed at RCW 
68.50.160. If deceased left no directions, etc. then subsection (3)(c) 
gives surviving spouse the “duty of disposition” of the remains and also 
the liability for the costs for funeral, etc.

I haven’t researched the issue but if wife wants the rights of a 
“surviving spouse,” I think she should cite the above statute.


andrekita
Law Office of F. Andrekita Silva
1325 Fourth Avenue, Suite 2000
Seattle, Washington 98101
206-224-8288
www.seattle-silvalaw.com






On 2023-07-27 15:33, Robert R. Cole wrote:
> Client is legally separated from her estranged husband.  He just died
> and she wonders about what her rights are, including widow benefits
> from his retirement.  Is there a good source of general but detailed
> info on those issues?  Like can she be disinherited (absent that being
> in the court order)?  What about decisions about his body?  Thanks...
> --
> 
> 	*
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> Very Truly Yours,
> 
> Robert R. Cole
> 
> Law Office of Cole & Gilday, P.C.
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