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The appellate court in Knoepfler did not describe the
inquiry in terms of the validity of the marriage contract (i.e.,
whether the spouse owns a present undivided interest in the
earnings of the other spouse), but only whether the other
spouse’s income ought to be taken into account in applying
Louisiana’s child support laws. 553 So. 2d 1032-1033. In the
instant case, the only inquiry is as to the validity of the
marriage contract in order to decide whether Sandra and Michael
each had a present undivided interest in the earnings of the
other.
Secondly, all of the opinions cited by respondent discuss
commingling in terms of mixing separate property with community
property, not separate property with separate property. See,
e.g., Thibodaux v. Thibodaux, 577 So. 2d 758 (La. App. 1st Cir.
1991). Even so, those cases hold that depositing separate funds
and community funds into the same bank account does not
necessarily “extinguish the separate character of either the
husband’s or the wife’s separate funds; only indiscriminate
commingling, so that one cannot identify or differentiate among
the funds, results in the account being deemed community.”
McMorris v. McMorris, 654 So. 2d 742, 746 (La. App. 1st Cir.
1995). Thus, even when separate funds are mixed with community
funds, it is only when those funds are “indiscriminately
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