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CLASSIFICATION OF OFFSPRING OF CATTLE RECEIVED AS GIFT
© 1995 National Legal Research Group, Inc.
WISCONSIN: Preuss v. Preuss, ___ Wis. 2d ___ , 536 N.W.2d 101 (Ct. App. 1995).
The offspring of a dairy herd which the wife received as a gift before the marriage were not themselves "gifts" which should have been treated as the wife's separate property.
Suppose one spouse brings cattle or for that matter any other herd animal to the marriage, and the animals reproduce. Are the offspring part of the marital estate? Or should the whole prolific herd be treated as that spouse's separate property? Delving briefly into the field of animal husbandry and bovine reproduction, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals concluded that while dairy cattle may inherit a number of characteristics from their parents, their classification as separate or marital property is not an inheritable trait.
When the couple married, the wife owned 17 Holstein dairy cattle given to her by her father. At the time of the divorce, 20 years later, those 17 cattle had either been sold or had died. However, the wife claimed that the 11 offspring of those original 17 retained the gift status. Hence, she asserted, they remained her separate property and should not have been included in the marital estate. The trial court disagreed and declined to exclude the animals from the estate. On appeal, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals looked to the statutory definition of gift or inherited property and affirmed.
The plain language of the statute, observed the court, only allows for exclusion if the property itself was a gift, was inherited upon the death of another, or was purchased with funds received as a gift or inheritance. Clearly, the court said, the 11 head of cattle here were neither acquired by gift nor purchased with funds acquired by gift. Rather, the court continued, they became part of the herd "as a result of bovine reproduction and therefore, they never had a gifted or inherited character and identity to maintain." 536 N.W.2d at 104.
The court was not persuaded by the wife's position that the value of her gift necessarily included any offspring produced by the livestock. The court analogized animals and their offspring to dividends paid on a gift of stock investments. The latter, the court observed, is treated as income and is included in the marital estate, and animal offspring should be treated similarly.
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