Professional degree is not marital property

Law Reporter, Sep 1999

Guy v. Guy, _ So. 2d _, No. 98-CA-00276-SCT, 1999 WL 233864 (Miss. Apr. 22, 1999).

The Mississippi Supreme Court held that a professional degree obtained by a spouse during marriage is not marital property but is personal to the holder of the degree.

Here, a husband put his wife through nursing school, and she left him after obtaining her degree. The couple's divorce judgment included the degree as a marital asset and assigned it a value equal to the amount the husband testified that he had spent on the wife's expenses and support while she pursued and completed the degree.

Reversing, the state high court noted that the question of whether a professional degree is marital property is an issue of first impression for the court.

Citing case law, the court noted the majority of jurisdictions addressing this issue have held that professional degrees are not marital property. Most states adopted this view, the court explained, because an educational degree has none of the attributes of property in the usual sense of that term. It is personal to the holder and cannot be divided or assigned.

Agreeing with the majority view, the court held the wife's nursing degree is not marital property. Nevertheless, the court said, it would be inequitable for the husband to have paid for the wife's education only to have her leave the marriage. Thus, the court held, where one spouse supports the other through school and is then divorced after the supported spouse earns a degree, the supporting spouse has the right to be reimbursed for his or her contributions.

Accordingly, the court remanded for ( 1 ) a determination of the amount of alimony that would adequately compensate the husband for his expenditure toward the wife's attaining her degree and (2) a recalculation of the division of marital property.

Wife's Counsel:

Martin A. Kilpatrick, Greenville, Miss.