Thanks for visiting! Welcome to a new way to research case law. You are viewing a free summary from Descrybe.ai. For citation and good law / bad law checking, legal issue analysis, and other advanced tools, explore our Legal Research Toolkit — not free, but close.
Linda Sagester v. Burroughs Allen Waltrip
Citation: Not availableDocket: 03-97-00651-CV
Court: Court of Appeals of Texas; June 25, 1998; Texas; State Appellate Court
Original Court Document: View Document
Linda Sagester appeals a take-nothing summary judgment against her claim for a share of military retirement benefits from her former husband, Burroughs Allen Waltrip. The trial court ruled that her suit was barred by both a two-year and a four-year statute of limitations. Sagester argues that Waltrip's general denial in her 1977 lawsuit for the same benefits did not constitute a repudiation sufficient to trigger the statute of limitations. The court found that after their divorce in 1975, the military benefits were held in common, and Sagester had the right to partition them. In 1977, she filed a suit for partition, which was dismissed in 1981 without addressing the substantive issues due to lack of prosecution. In 1997, Sagester refiled for partition, and Waltrip, now a Texas resident, moved for summary judgment, claiming that his earlier general denial repudiated her claim and triggered the statute of limitations. The trial court agreed and granted the motion based on the limitations periods. Sagester contends that the general denial should not have been interpreted as a repudiation. The appellate court will review whether Waltrip established the absence of a genuine issue of material fact for the limitations defense and whether the statutes of limitations indeed barred Sagester's suit. The court emphasizes that the statutes are triggered by the repudiation of a claim to community property. Under Texas law, suits to divide property not addressed in a final divorce decree must be filed within two years after one spouse unequivocally repudiates the other's ownership interest, per Tex. Fam. Code Ann. 9.202(a). For cases not involving real property, a four-year statute of limitations applies unless a shorter period is specified (Tex. Civ. Prac. Rem. Code Ann. 16.051). In partition suits outside the Family Code, the statute begins to run upon unequivocal repudiation. The trial court ruled that Sagester's claim was barred by both statutes of limitation and the appeal hinges on whether Waltrip's general denial in his 1977 answer constituted sufficient repudiation to activate these limitations. The court concluded that the 1977 pleadings did not demonstrate Waltrip's unequivocal repudiation of Sagester's claim. Waltrip's argument that the denial and his long-term non-payment of benefits constituted repudiation was rejected, as a general denial merely contests the claims without establishing unequivocal repudiation. The failure to pay benefits was deemed insufficient to indicate a clear rejection of the claim. Consequently, the trial court's summary judgment based on the statutes of limitations was reversed, and the case was remanded for further proceedings, affirming that neither statute of limitations commenced without unequivocal repudiation.