Kansas appellate courts says marital property in divorce cases includes personal-injury awards
Kansas Supreme Court Justice Caleb Stegall, center, authors an opinion reversing a Johnson County District Court judge's decision and affirming a Kansas Court of Appeals opinion that all property of married persons becomes marital property in a divorce proceeding in which a court enters a final divorce decree. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — The Kansas Supreme Court reversed a district court by declaring separate husband-and-wife annuities created to settle legal claims after a man was catastrophically injured in an explosion must be considered marital property in a divorce proceeding.
Justices of the Supreme Court, echoing a three-judge panel of the Kansas Court of Appeals, said a Johnson County District Court judge erred by concluding annuities held by accident victim Aaron Meek and his spouse at time of the accident, Nancy Karanja-Meek, weren't martial property.
Both appellate courts said all property, including confidential cash awards and deferred payments, had to be treated as marital property when a marriage ended.
'We affirm the Court of Appeals and remand to the district court for it to conduct equitable division of the marital estate with both annuities considered marital property,' Justice Caleb Stegall said in the opinion published Friday.
Meek was compensated due to a traumatic brain injury he suffered Feb. 19, 2013, when a Time Warner Cable contractor installing underground fiber optic cable in Kansas City, Missouri, struck a high-pressure natural gas line with a boring drill. Escaping gas migrated to JJ's Restaurant, which exploded and leveled the building. One person was killed and 15 injured.
Karanja-Meek had brought a claim for loss of companionship after her husband's accident because 'I lost Aaron, the Aaron that was there before he got injured.'
Both resolved their personal-injury claims in 2015 and received lump-sum payments as well as separate annuities with payments until 2045.
In 2017, Karanja-Meek filed for divorce. A question that wasn't settled through negotiation was division of the annuities. Karanja-Meek said the annuities were awarded individually and shouldn't be divided by the court, but Meek contended the court should award him 'all or the vast majority' of his wife's annuity because she was 'supposed to be my caretaker.'
District Court Judge Christopher Jayaram entered a divorce decree in 2022 and ruled the annuities were separate property. In response, Meek turned to the Court of Appeals because he wanted Karanja-Meek's annuity — not his own — declared marital property.
The Court of Appeals concluded both annuities were marital property subject to division. Meek appealed to the Supreme Court and claimed the Court of Appeals relied on flawed legal analysis.
Justice Stegall said Karanja-Meek, who had clearly lost before the Court of Appeals, in a 'rarely seen turn' suddenly realized the Court of Appeals was correct to view all property as marital.
Stegall, an appointee of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, said the lower court's consideration of 'mechanical' and 'analytical' approaches to property division in divorce cases was 'disapproved.'
'We find it simpler to follow the plain text of the statutory scheme without the need for labels,' he said. 'If a label is required, one might term it the 'statutory approach' — which has the added benefit of preserving the court's role in Kansas to interpret the law, not write it.'
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