Reported / Citable
Background
Nicholas Irias worked for the East Bay Municipal Utility District from 1987 to 2018, and both he and his employer contributed to his pension. He and Lisa Seiwald began dating in 1992, moved in together in May 1993, executed a domestic partnership affidavit in December 1993, bought a home, and married in February 2003. Seiwald later filed for legal separation in 2020 and brought a civil breach-of-contract action, which the trial court consolidated with the dissolution proceeding. She alleged that when they moved in together in May 1993 they entered an oral Marvin agreement, lasting until the marriage, to combine their skills, efforts, labor, and earnings and equally share property acquired through those efforts.
After a five-day trial on the Marvin claims, the trial court found an implied-in-fact agreement to equally share property acquired during the premarital Marvin period and held that Seiwald was entitled to an equal share of Irias's EBMUD pension contributions and accumulations from that period. The court also concluded that even if it could not order EBMUD to pay Seiwald directly, it could order Irias to pay her share after receiving pension payments or through an actuarial valuation and payment by other means. The Court of Appeal granted review only on the narrow second issue whether Public Utilities Code section 12337 precluded Seiwald from sharing in those benefits, not on whether a Marvin agreement existed.
On September 28, 2026, the Court of Appeal filed a published opinion affirming the trial court's order. On October 16, 2026, it issued an order modifying that opinion and denying Irias's rehearing petition. The modification added language stating that Marvin permits couples to apply Family Law Act provisions by contract and that section 12337 does not differentiate between an ownership interest established by contract or by statute. It also added footnote 5 rejecting Irias's request for supplemental briefing under Government Code section 68081.
The Court’s Holding
The court held that section 12337 did not bar Seiwald's claim because she was not proceeding as a creditor or assignee. Under the Marvin agreement found by the trial court, she had an ownership interest in pension contributions and benefits attributable to Irias's labor during the parties' nonmarital relationship. Marvin allows unmarried partners to agree to pool earnings and hold acquired property under community-property principles, and California law treats pension rights attributable to employment during marriage as community property owned by both spouses rather than property reachable only through assignment or execution.
The court rejected Irias's reliance on pension-protection cases such as Ogle because those cases involved creditors seeking to enforce judgments, not a claimant asserting ownership under a contract to treat acquired property as community property. It likewise distinguished probate cases in which Marvin claimants were labeled creditors, explaining that the probate label did not resolve whether the underlying claim rested on debt or ownership. Because Seiwald's claim rested on ownership under the parties' agreement, the anti-assignment and anti-execution protections of section 12337 did not apply.
The October 16, 2026 modification did not change the judgment. It clarified that nothing in Marvin prevents couples from applying the Family Law Act by contract and that section 12337 does not differentiate between contract-based and statute-based ownership interests. The court denied rehearing and held that supplemental briefing under Government Code section 68081 was unnecessary because the pension-ownership issue was fairly included within the issues raised on appeal.
Key Takeaways
- A Marvin agreement can give a former cohabitant an ownership interest in pension benefits accrued during the premarital relationship.
- Public Utilities Code section 12337 protects pension benefits from creditors and assignees, but it does not defeat an ownership claim based on a Marvin agreement.
- The Court of Appeal treated the case as one about ownership rather than execution, assignment, garnishment, or attachment.
- The October 16, 2026 order modified the published opinion and denied rehearing, but expressly left the judgment unchanged.
- The court also held that supplemental briefing under Government Code section 68081 was unnecessary because the ownership issue had been fairly included in the appeal.
Why It Matters
This decision extends established community-property reasoning into the Marvin context and confirms that public pension anti-assignment statutes do not necessarily bar contractual ownership claims between former partners. It draws a careful line between creditor enforcement, which pension statutes restrict, and ownership claims arising from an agreement to treat property acquired during a relationship as community property.
The published opinion, as modified on October 16, 2026, also provides procedural guidance: the court declined supplemental briefing under Government Code section 68081 where the issue was fairly included in the appeal, and it used the modification to sharpen the point that contract-based ownership interests stand on the same footing as statutory ownership interests for purposes of section 12337.