LOUIS COOK AND ARIEL CURTIS COOK APPELLANTS v. QUINTIN WEBSTER APPELLEE (2026)

OPINION REVERSING AND REMANDING

Louis Cook and Ariel Curtis Cook appeal the Jefferson Circuit Court's summary judgment interpreting KRS ¹ 392.090(2) as not requiring Quintin Webster's forfeiture of his right and interest in and to the property and estate of his late wife, Ladochye Webster. Because there is no genuine issue regarding the facts that Quintin chose to voluntarily leave Ladochye, to live in adultery, and to not live with her again as husband and wife, we conclude the statute requires the forfeiture described. Therefore, we reverse the summary judgment and remand with instructions to enter summary judgment in accordance with this Opinion.

BACKGROUND

Quintin and Ladochye married in 1988 and never had children. The complaint and answer admitting the allegation identifies the parties’ earliest marital residence as Autumn Run Apartments in Louisville. In the 1990s, Quintin took up residence elsewhere. In 1996, they signed a mortgage and bought a condo deeded in Ladochye's name only. Quintin never resided there.

Although Quintin acknowledges ceasing to reside with Ladochye, he insists their marital relationship “continued.” (Appellee Brief 1). However, he also concedes he “did commit adultery,” but says this was “known and permitted” by Ladochye, as the couple had an “open marriage.” (Appellee Br. 1–2). Quintin never again rejoined Ladochye in the marital residence prior to Ladochye dying intestate in November 2022. We note further facts as necessary.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review a trial court's grant of summary judgment under a de novo standard. Adams v. Sietsema, 533 S.W.3d 172, 177 (Ky. 2017) (quoting Shelton v. Ky. Easter Seals Soc'y, Inc., 413 S.W.3d 901, 905 (Ky. 2013)). A trial court's construction of a statute is entitled to no deference on appeal because “statutory construction is a matter of law subject to a de novo standard of review.” Cumberland Valley Contractors, Inc. v. Bell County Coal Corp., 238 S.W.3d 644, 647 (Ky. 2007).

ANALYSIS

The trial court ruled that KRS 392.090 does not operate to bar Quintin's inheritance of any of Ladochye's estate. Subsection (2) of the statute reads in full:

If either spouse voluntarily leaves the other and lives in adultery, the offending party forfeits all right and interest in and to the property and estate of the other, unless they afterward become reconciled and live together as husband and wife.

KRS 392.090(2). The scope of our review is the interpretation and application of this subsection.

When we engage in statutory construction, our aim “is to give effect to the intent of the General Assembly.” Richardson v. Louisville/Jefferson Cnty. Metro Government, 260 S.W.3d 777, 779 (Ky. 2008); KRS 446.080(1). To achieve this:

[W]e look first to the language of the statute, giving the words their plain and ordinary meaning. The statute must be read as a whole and in context with other parts of the law․ Where a statute is unambiguous, we need not consider extrinsic evidence of legislative intent and public policy.

Id. at 779 (citation omitted). Put another away, “if the language is clear, our inquiry ends.” Seeger v. Lanham, 542 S.W.3d 286, 291 (Ky. 2018).

We believe the language of KRS 392.090(2) certainly is clear. Using that language, we ask simple questions that can be answered by the material facts we find in the record, and about which there is no genuine issue.

First, did Quintin, being Ladochye's spouse, “voluntarily leave” her? Quintin says, “the couple chose not to live in the same residence.” (Appellee Br. at 7) (emphasis added). He cannot corroborate the implication it was a mutual choice, nor does that matter. Because the issue is not whether she forfeited a share of his estate, her state of mind and actions are irrelevant.

However, that same statement constitutes his admission that he chose not to live with Ladochye. Even if we presume the decision was mutual, it does not affect Quintin's admitted choice to “voluntarily leave” Ladochye. The only reasonable inference to be drawn from this record is that, wherever they resided when this choice was made, Quintin chose to leave Ladochye behind.

Second, did Quintin “live[ ] in adultery”? The Supreme Court said in Griffin v. Rice that it “requires proof of more than a single act of adultery[.]” 381 S.W.3d 198, 200 (Ky. 2012). How much adultery is enough to satisfy the statute? A hundred years before Griffin, Kentucky's highest court analyzed identical language from a predecessor statute of KRS 392.090, KS ² 2133. Edited to correct for Quintin's gender, the Court stated:

This statute does not mean that [the husband] shall constantly live with one [wo]man in adultery during [his] abandonment of the [wife] in order to forfeit [his] right of [curtesy] or distributable share; but if [he] admits any [wo]man or [wo]men to [him] periodically, or whenever it is convenient or opportunity is afforded, during said abandonment, such conduct constitutes a living in adultery within the meaning of the statute.

Bond v. Bond's Adm'r, 150 S.W. 363, 364 (Ky. 1912) (internal quotation marks omitted) (discussed in Rice v. Griffin, No. 2009-CA-001170-MR, 2010 WL 3292938, at *4 (Ky. App. Aug. 6, 2010), aff'd, 381 S.W.3d 198 (Ky. 2012)).

We need not belabor this definition. Quintin admits that until prostate cancer and impotence made adultery impossible after 2012, he “did live in adultery, as relates to Ky. Rev. Stat. § 392.090(2).” (Appellee's Br. at 8).

Applying the first half of KRS 392.090(2), there is only one conclusion—Quintin “forfeits all right and interest in and to the property and estate of” Ladochye. The questions shift to whether the second part of subsection (2) applies—the part Quintin calls the “redemption” provision.

A philandering husband may redeem himself, if not to his wife, at least from the sanction of forfeiture if “they afterward become reconciled and live together as husband and wife.” KRS 392.090(2). Appellants, the Cooks, do not challenge Quintin's averment that, once his impotence prevented his adultery to continue, he reconciled with Ladochye. Certainly, the record shows Quintin's many acts of supporting Ladochye. We presume reconciliation of a sort occurred.

However, to prevent forfeiture, Quintin needed to prove he and Ladochye did “live together as husband and wife” before she died. Id. Irrefutably, they never resided in the same abode after Quintin's 1990s departure. And, if living in the same abode is what the legislature meant by the plain words “live together,” our analysis is through, and Quintin fails to satisfy the “redemption” provision's standard. Quintin disagrees and says it does not mean what it says.

Quintin says, as “a geographic matter,” he and Ladochye never lived together, but they “lived together apart” as husband and wife. (Appellee's Br. at 14). Interpreting his brief as generously as possible, he makes two arguments.

He first indicates his belief that the “redemption” provision is not made up of distinct elements, reconciliation on the one hand and cohabitation on the other. Blending the two, he says “the legislative intent was not that they had to live in the same residence to be reconciled” as husband and wife. (Appellee's Br. at 15). That is, he does not interpret the word “and” in KRS 392.090(2) in the conjunctive sense, but in an explicative sense, the phrase “live together as husband and wife” merely explaining what it sometimes means to “become reconciled.”

To support his interpretation, he cites Meyers’ Administrator v. Meyers, 50 S.W.2d 81 (Ky. 1932), noting the decedent's wife left the marital abode, moved in with her parents, and “only occasionally visited her husband” before he died. (Appellee's Br. at 15). The statute did not require forfeiture of her dower rights in her husband's estate. This persuaded the trial judge who failed to recognize Meyers’ Administrator is entirely inapposite. Mrs. Meyers never needed the “redemption” provision as Quintin calls it because the forfeiture provision never applied. In fact, the high court reviewing the case ignored opinions Meyers’ administrator cited about the adultery element of forfeiture because “there is no intimation that [Mrs. Meyers] is or had ever engaged in any such conduct.” Meyers’ Adm'r, 50 S.W.2d at 82. Meyers’ Administrator is irrelevant.

We are not persuaded by Quintin's argument that “and” is not conjunctive. A statute's “words and phrases shall be construed according to the common and approved usage of language ․” KRS 446.080(4). According to common usage, the word “and” is afforded meaning as a conjunction, not as a substitute for a truly explicative conjunctive phrase such as “that is” or “in other words” or, coincidentally, “such as.” As a rule, “we assume that the ‘[Legislature] meant exactly what it said, and said exactly what it meant.’ ” Erie Ins. Exchange v. Johnson, 713 S.W.3d 149, 155–56 (Ky. 2025) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). When it said “and” it meant “and” and nothing else.

His other argument is that times have changed. He said, “married couples not residing in the same residence isn't that bizarre of a concept[.]” (Appellee's Br. at 16). His evidence includes a 2017 news article from the British newspaper, The Guardian (online version), claiming 3% of marriages in the United States are between spouses who do not reside in the same household. That was enough to persuade the trial court to, in effect, rewrite the statute to read that estranged spouses must “ha[ve] reconciled and were in a marital relationship as husband and wife at the time of [the spouse's] death.” (Opinion and Order Granting Summary Judgment, p. 5–6 (Record 419)). Of course, a court “interprets our statutes[;] it cannot rewrite them.” Farley v. P&P Construction, Inc., 677 S.W.3d 415, 423 (Ky. 2023). Quintin wants this Court to affirm that trendier rewriting to accommodate those fashionably “labeled a ‘swinger’ or a participant in an open marriage.” (Appellee's Br. at 8). We decline.

We interpret statutes faithfully, not fashionably. To properly determine legislative intent, a statute must be “viewed in the light of the general purpose or scheme which the Legislature had in mind when it passed the statute.” Lewis v. Creasey Corporation, 248 S.W. 1046, 1048 (Ky. 1923) (emphasis added). A bit of background then is appropriate.

We know of no Kentucky law with a longer history or more consistent purpose than KRS 392.090(2). Subsection (2) of KRS 392.090:

was modeled on the English statute of 13 Edward I, c. 34, enacted in 1285, and commonly known as the “Statute of Westminster Second.” See Baldwin v. Cook, 232 Ky. 365, 23 S.W.2d 601 (1930). Kentucky initially adopted the statute in 1796 and codified the current version as KRS 392.090(2) in 1942.

Griffin, 381 S.W.3d at 201 (footnote omitted). It is inconceivable that when our legislature recodified this ancient law in 1942, it contemplated accommodating the non-traditional approach to marriage Quintin chose for himself. It would erode the institution of marriage, and that is fundamentally at odds with the Commonwealth's express support for the institution's continued vitality. To this day, it remains true that:

The public policy of this state, as well as that of all others, so far as we know, is to foster, protect, and encourage marriage, as it is the foundation of the family relation, without which, an observation of the history of the human family shows, there can be no civilization. The state is interested in the permanency of the marriage relation, and its interest finds expression in ․ various statutes[.]

Edleson v. Edleson, 200 S.W. 625, 629 (Ky. 1918). One of those statutes is the very statute we interpret here, KRS 392.090(2). Neither it nor its precursors were enacted with a purpose to enrich unknown parties such as the Cooks; they were enacted pursuant to a public policy, as Edleson states, to protect civilization itself.

No matter how human relationships have evolved or will evolve, this policy to promote the institution of marriage, embraced by all governments in the American Republic, remains unwavering. No better example can be found in our nation's recent jurisprudence than in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644, 135 S. Ct. 2584, 192 L. Ed. 2d 609 (2015).

The Supreme Court of the United States in that opinion set out some “reasons marriage is fundamental under the Constitution[.]” Id. at 665, 135 S. Ct. at 2599. Pertinent to this case, the Court said, “marriage is an esteemed institution ․ , a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It ․ promotes a way of life, not causes ․, not ․ social projects.” Id. at 666–67, 135 S. Ct. at 2599 (citation omitted).

“Marriage responds to the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there.” Id. at 667, 135 S. Ct. at 2600. Did Ladochye ever call out to find no one there? Quintin tells us his thoughts about marriage and Ladochye's thoughts were the same. We cannot accept his mere belief as fact. Within this record, there is no such proof. We will never know what Ladochye thought of Quintin's approach to marriage. The truth is neither he nor anyone can traverse beyond the threshold of another human's psyche. We will not venture the attempt.

But the trial court seems to have done so, concluding Ladochye and Quintin were like-minded on the issue. Following that reasoning, the trial court inferred Quintin did not abandon Ladochye any more than Ladochye abandoned Quintin. The trial court said the “most important[ ]” evidence for that was the absence of “evidence that the couple ever sought a permanent dissolution of their marriage prior to Ladochye's death.” (Opinion and Order Granting Summary Judgment, p. 5 (R. 419)). Concluding the only inference to be drawn from that fact is Ladochye's approval of Quintin's abandonment and adultery cannot be justified. There are many reasons—religious, moral, prideful, personal—for remaining in a marriage that does not live up to one's expectations.

When the state of New York grappled with the issue, it concluded abandonment makes a marriage “a mere legal formality which condemns the innocent party to a life of either unwanted celibacy or concubinage.” Dolores Gebhardt and Sondra Miller, Justice Abandoned: Forty Years of Stalemate in Actions for Divorce on the Ground of Abandonment, 27 Pace L. Rev. 605, 606 (2007) (quoting 1966 Rep. Joint Legislative Committee on Matrimonial and Family Laws, New York Leg. Doc. No. 8 at 87). Quintin gave Ladochye that choice when he “chose not to live in the same residence[.]” (Appellee's Br. at 7). “[M]arriage is a keystone of [the Nation's] social order ․ the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress․ Marriage remains a building block of our national community.” Obergefell, 576 U.S. at 669, 135 S. Ct. at 2601 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). For that reason, governments offer “symbolic recognition and material benefits to protect and nourish the union.” Id. It is “an expanding list of governmental rights, benefits, and responsibilities [relating to] ․ taxation; inheritance and property rights; rules of intestate succession; spousal privilege in the law of evidence; hospital access; medical decisionmaking authority” and much more. Id. at 669–70, 135 S. Ct. at 2601.

We discuss this essential relationship between the institution of marriage and government to emphasize the relationship's unchanged and necessarily unchangeable nature. It also repudiates Quintin's response to the cohabitation requirement in KRS 392.090(2) in which he too casually asks, “So what if they slept in separate residences ․ ?” (Appellees’ Br. at 17). In the context of KRS 392.090(2), it not only matters. It is essential.

Accordingly, the December 5, 2024 Order and Opinion of the Jefferson Circuit Court is reversed. We remand this case to the trial court with the instruction to find an absence of any genuine issue regarding the material facts of this case, and that Appellants, Louis Cook and Ariel Curtis Cook, are entitled to judgment as a matter of law by the application of KRS 392.090(2).

FOOTNOTES

1.   Kentucky Revised Statutes.

2.   Kentucky Statutes.

ACREE, JUDGE:

ALL CONCUR.