In re Marriage of Seaman & Menjou

In In re Marriage of Seaman & Menjou (1991) 1 Cal.App.4th 1489, while in the midst of a divorce, husband's and wife's children were declared dependent children by the juvenile court based on allegations of physical and emotional abuse. In their dissolution action, wife sought contribution from husband for attorney fees incurred in the dependency action. The family law court found that although both parties had harmed the children, husband's responsibility outweighed that of wife and that husband was in the better financial position. Accordingly, husband was ordered to pay a portion of wife's attorney fees under the predecessor statute of section 2030(a). (1 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1492-1493.) The Seaman & Menjou court noted that one of the purposes of the predecessor statute was to ensure that each party to a dissolution action has access to legal representation sufficient to properly litigate the controversy. (1 Cal.App.4th at p. 1497.) "Thus, the statute enables a trial court to prevent a spouse with greater financial resources from harassing or coercing the less advantaged spouse into submission in the dissolution case by forcing him or her to defend other lawsuits; such independent suits are 'related' within the meaning of section 2030(a) because they are intended to produce some result in a dissolution case. At the same time, not all actions which are in some way related by subject matter to a dissolution action can properly be viewed as within the reach of section 2030(a). For example, during the pendency of a dissolution proceeding, the husband finds the wife with her lover, becomes involved in a physical altercation and is subsequently sued by the lover for assault. Although the assault case arises out of the dissolution in a general way, the husband's act is so independent of the dissolution that no purpose of section 2030(a) would be served by having the wife contribute toward his legal fees (assuming the wife to be the party with the greater financial resources)." ( In re Marriage of Seaman & Menjou, supra, 1 Cal.App.4th at p. 1497.) In the case before it, the Seaman & Menjou court concluded that the trial court had abused its discretion in awarding attorney fees to the wife because the dissolution and dependency cases were fundamentally different. (1 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1497-1499.)