Court Applies `Dissolution of Marriage’ Exception to Code’s Automatic Stay

A divorce court properly granted a terminally ill husband’s motion to bifurcate the proceeding and dissolve the parties’ marriage, where the wife’s filing for bankruptcy protection one day before the trial had barred it from dividing the marital property, the Washington Court of Appeals, Division Three, ruled June 14 (In re Vigil).

Judge Laurel H. Siddoway found that the trial court “correctly concluded that the Bankruptcy Code did not prevent it from dissolving the [ ] marriage as long as it did not determine the division of property.”

The wife’s bankruptcy filing resulted in the bankruptcy court having exclusive ...