Court to divide assets of gay couple

In one of the first cases of its type in the state, an estranged gay couple is asking a Spokane County court to divide assets they shared while living together.

A trial starting today before retired Superior Court Judge Harold Clarke tests a Washington Court of Appeals ruling last April that gay couples should be treated like other unmarried couples when they split up.

Spokane attorney Jerry Davis said he is confident the trial is the first of its kind in Spokane County. He believes it also is the first in the state since the appellate ruling.

Davis is defending Spokane business-woman Linda Kelsh in an October 2003 lawsuit that Spokane attorney Stanley Perdue filed on behalf of Kelsh’s lesbian partner, Roseanne Day. Day was a part-time high school foreign-language teacher and coach for Spokane Public Schools.

Day’s case was strengthened when the Court of Appeals ruled last year that the state’s legal doctrine on “meretricious” – or marriage-like – relationships applies to same-sex couples, even though they can’t legally wed in Washington.

The state Supreme Court had laid out several criteria for determining whether property acquired by unmarried couples should be divided as though they were married. One of the criteria was the couple’s intent to assume marital roles — roles legally denied to gays.

Like other couples that part company unhappily, Day and Kelsh have very different views of who contributed what to the relationship, according to court documents. The relationship ended in December 2002.

They don’t even agree on how long their 12-year cohabitation was a “meretricious relationship.”

Day claims in court documents that she took on the role of “wife” when she moved into Kelsh’s home on West Franklin Court in mid-1990. State law doesn’t allow Day or any other unmarried partner to collect alimony, but Day wants compensation for contributions she says she made as “the little house frau.”

The mutually used appellation refers to the fact that she was a part-time high school German teacher for the Spokane School District, Day said in court documents. She said she contributed her pay to household expenses and sometimes worked without pay in Kelsh’s Candy ‘N’ Carmelcorn store at the Northtown Mall.

Day concedes Kelsh is entitled to keep her home and business assets, but she wants part of the proceeds from the sale of undeveloped property at Lake Spokane – also known as Long Lake – purchased in Kelsh’s name while they were together. Day also wants compensation for improvements she says increased the value of Kelsh’s home.

Day seeks compensation for the amount a mortgage was reduced while she lived with Kelsh, as well as for appreciation in the home’s value.

Kelsh, on the other hand, claims Day should have to reimburse her for the equivalent of 11 years of rent and other support, including much of the cost of Day’s master’s degree in education at Eastern Washington University. Day says she used about $2,500 from an accident settlement to pay part of her educational expenses, and Kelsh paid the rest.

Kelsh seeks other educational costs from Day in a counter-claim, as well as reimbursement for electric bills, cellular phone bills and personal debts Day ran up on a credit card. Kelsh says the credit card was supposed to be reserved for trips the two took together.

Day acknowledges she owes Kelsh about $3,000 for credit-card charges. But that would be offset by proceeds from the Lake Spokane property.

Kelsh purchased the lakefront property in August 1990 with a $10,000 down payment and sold it in August 2003 – after her breakup with Day. According to Day, Kelsh should share the $7,860 she collected at the time of the sale and the monthly $776 payments she continues to receive.

Kelsh contends Day contributed little to their relationship, which she says ceased to be romantic in 1998. Day failed to help her financially or emotionally when she suffered colon cancer and her business collapsed, Kelsh claims in court documents.

Kelsh says her Candy ‘N’ Carmelcorn store prospered until Northtown managers forced her to move to a less visible location in the mall. She says she had to take out a $20,000 mortgage on her home to relocate the store, but her income was cut in half.

Then, Kelsh says, she had to borrow from relatives and take another mortgage, for $12,000, to pay her hospital costs and other bills. Eventually, she says, she was forced to sell the Lake Spokane property as well as her boat, her piano and her late father’s gun collection.