Faris v. Taylor

Gordon Taylor and Tamra Faris were married in 1973. For most of their marriage, they lived in Juneau, Alaska. Faris spent her entire career working for the federal government, earning a Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) pension. In 2004 Faris accepted a promotion and moved to Honolulu, Hawaii. She moved to Portland, Oregon, also for work reasons, in 2006 and at the time of this decision, resided there. She retired from her career with the federal government in 2010. In 2013 Taylor filed for divorce. He and Faris reached a settlement agreement in February 2014 and the court entered a divorce decree at that time. Three days later, however, Faris sought to withdraw distribution of property from that agreement. Although Faris had moved to a different state several years prior, the superior court determined the couple’s date of separation was in 2014. The court also recaptured pension payments the two received after this date. Faris appealed, arguing that these and various other aspects of the superior court’s property division were erroneous. The Alaska Supreme Court determined the superior court neither erred nor abused its discretion in its determination of the date of separation. And most of the wife’s other challenges to the property division were without merit. But the Supreme Court reversed the superior court’s failure to make specific factual findings in its recapture analysis. View "Faris v. Taylor" on Justia Law