In re Marriage of Van Sickle

In In re Marriage of Van Sickle (1977) 68 Cal. App. 3d 728, wife appealed from an interlocutory judgment of dissolution that, among other things, ordered her to reimburse husband, from her share of the community property, for all the payments he had made to her under prior orders for temporary spousal support. Husband had not filed a "notice of motion or order to show cause to modify or revoke" any of these prior support orders (former Civ. Code, 4357, now Fam. Code, 3603); rather the court had ordered the reimbursement on its own to equalize the division of community property. That is, there was no earlier modification request to which the reimbursement order related. Therefore, the court concluded the order "was in effect an impermissible attempt to modify the preexisting temporary spousal support orders retroactively. " (Id. at p. 740.) The court listed each item of community property. However, it did not assign values or divide the property, reserving those determinations. On appeal, the court held that the characterization of property as community in the judgment was not appealable because not final. ( Id. at p. 737.) It described that portion of the judgment as "at best an interim decision . . ." and held the appeal was "premature." (Ibid.)