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665 S.W.2d 107

27 Tex.Sup.Ct.J. 256

Jensen v. Jensen

Texas Supreme Court

Decided February 29, 1984

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1984-02-29

Relies on Vallone v. Vallone · Cohen v. Cohen

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1984-02-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 54 later decisions — most recently November 2018 · most notably Neagle v. Nelson (1985), Penick v. Penick (1990)

51 state decisions

2201984199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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ROBERTSON, Justice,

¶1concurring.

¶2I concur in the result reached by the majority. This Court in Vallone v. Vallone, 644 S.W.2d 455 (Tex.1968), did not remand that cause to the trial court on the basis of Mrs. Vallone’s failure to plead the affirmative relief of reimbursement. 644 S.W.2d at 458. Although Mrs. Jensen, like Mrs. Vallone, did not plead reimbursement this Court has remanded the cause of action in the interest of justice. The majority’s opinion offers no explanation for the different disposition.

¶3Until Vallone, Texas courts had traditionally followed a general rule of construing divorce pleadings liberally. Cohen v. Cohen, 194 S.W.2d 273, 275 (Tex.Civ.App.—Austin 1946, no writ). The majority opinion in Valloneappeared to mark the beginning of a shift to a policy requiring specific pleadings in family law matters. 644 S.W.2d at 466. However, the rise of the requirement of specific pleadings was short lived. The majority opinion, handed down thirteen months later, announces a return to a broad construction of divorce pleadings. Although a member of the majority in Vallone, I am of the opinion that this *111Court’s return to a more liberal policy for construing divorce pleadings will provide trial judges with the freedom needed to reach just decisions in complex and sensitive family law actions.

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