A judge dissolved a divorcing same-sex couple’s Vermont civil union, but said he could not apply New York’s equitable distribution rules on marital property to assets acquired during the civil union and before their marriage.
“The Equitable Distribution Law recognizes that spouses have an equitable claim to things of value arising out of the marital relationship and classifies them as subject to distribution by focusing on the marital status of the parties,” Acting Monroe County Supreme Court Justice Richard Dollinger wrote in O’Reilly-Morshead v. O’Reilly-Morshead, 14/6582.
