A Washington man was due to inherit his father's ranch, but a court found he had financially abused his father and the land went to his children; 14 years later, an appeals court upheld $166,698.50 in divorce judgments

Calvin Evans Jr. expected to inherit his father’s Washington ranch, a property that had also become central to his divorce from Deborah Evans, now Deborah Bunney. During the couple’s 2011 dissolution, a court awarded Bunney the full $174,000 the marital community had invested in improvements to the ranch, based on the expectation that Evans would receive the property from his father. But a separate probate dispute later found that Evans had financially abused his father, leaving him with nothing from the estate and sending the ranch to Evans’s four adult children. Fourteen years after the divorce judgments were entered, Evans asked a court to undo them because the anticipated inheritance never arrived. On November 2, 2026, the Washington Court of Appeals, Division One, refused. It upheld two divorce judgments totalling $166,698.50 against Evans, along with a 2021 order extending them, concluding that his challenge came too late and that the loss of the inheritance was not an extraordinary circumstance justifying relief, as per Justia U.S. Law. Read more details about it here:The ranch and the divorceEvans and Bunney lived and worked on the ranch owned by Evans’s father during the later years of their marriage. The marital community invested at least $174,000 in improvements to the property. Evans’s father’s 2006 will left the ranch to Evans, and that expected inheritance became a major factor in the couple’s divorce.The dissolution court entered its decree on September 15, 2011. Because it found Evans would retain more than $800,000 in ranch property, it awarded Bunney the entire $174,000 community investment. The decree included two monetary judgments against Evans, one for $162,190.50 and another for $4,508, bringing the principal total to $166,698.50.The decree treated the ranch as Evans’s property only if he inherited it from his father, subject to Bunney’s $174,000 lien. It also said the court retained jurisdiction to reconsider the financial distribution if Evans did not succeed under his father’s will but received property through intestate succession or another route.The inheritance falls apartWhile the divorce was still pending, Evans’s three siblings filed a petition under Washington’s Trust and Estate Disputed Resolution Act, known as TEDRA. They sought to invalidate the will on grounds including lack of testamentary capacity and undue influence, and asked the court to declare Evans an abuser under the applicable statute, which would prevent him from inheriting his father’s property.On May 31, 2012, the TEDRA court found that Evans had financially abused his father. As a result, Evans received nothing from his father’s estate, and the ranch passed to Evans’s four adult children. The Washington Court of Appeals later affirmed that decision in 2015.The property did not disappear from Evans’s financial life entirely. Two of his children, Cory and Jesse Evans, later transferred their combined 50 percent interest in the ranch to Hidden River Ranch LLC, a company Evans solely owned, in exchange for his agreement to leave each child 50 percent of any ranch interest he held. That arrangement meant that, although Evans did not inherit the land directly, his company acquired half of it through his children.Evans tries to undo the judgmentsAfter losing the TEDRA appeal, Evans moved in May 2017 to vacate the two 2011 divorce judgments and redistribute the couple’s property. The dissolution court denied the motion without prejudice, saying it needed more information about the outcome of Bunney’s separate unjust-enrichment lawsuit against the estate and those who ultimately inherited the ranch.That separate lawsuit ultimately failed. In March 2019, the court dismissed Bunney’s unjust-enrichment claims with prejudice. By then, the dissolution court had also denied Bunney’s request to place a lien on the ranch because Hidden River Ranch was not a party to the divorce case, while noting that it had previously declined to vacate the divorce judgment and maintained that position.Despite that clear signal, Evans did not renew his request to vacate the judgments. The appeals court later found that he had the information he needed by March 2019, but waited until April 2025 to file another motion for relief.The 2021 extension and the lineIn July 2021, Bunney applied to extend the 2011 judgments for another 10 years under Washington’s judgment-enforcement statute. The dissolution court granted the extension on July 16, 2021, allowing execution on the judgments during the additional period.The ranch was later ordered sold in a partition action because it could not be divided effectively. In December 2024, the partition court found that Bunney was the judgment creditor, that the principal amount of the judgments was $166,698.50, that Evans had made no payments, and that interest was accruing at 12 percent per year. The court then granted Bunney a charging lien against any portion of the sale proceeds to which Evans or his interest in Hidden River Ranch was entitled.Evans said he only learned of the 2021 extension in December 2024, when Bunney sought that lien. About five months later, in April 2025, he moved to vacate both the original judgments and the extension order.Why the appeal failedThe appeals court reviewed the trial court’s refusal to vacate the judgments for abuse of discretion. It concluded there was none. Evans’s challenge to the original 2011 judgments was untimely because he knew by 2012 that he had not inherited the ranch, and he had the information needed to renew his motion by March 2019.The court also rejected Evans’s argument that Bunney’s failure to give notice of the 2021 extension required vacating it. Under the statute, an extension is granted as a matter of right, and the limited issues a court may consider are timeliness, partial satisfaction and calculation errors. Evans did not identify a specific argument he was prevented from making, nor did he provide clear and convincing evidence that any alleged lack of notice caused him unfair prejudice.Finally, the court held that losing the anticipated inheritance was not an extraordinary circumstance under Washington’s rule for reopening judgments. The divorce decree had expressly recognised that the inheritance was uncertain and reserved jurisdiction to reconsider it. Because that risk was anticipated, its eventual occurrence did not become extraordinary merely because it happened.What the ruling meansThe decision leaves Bunney’s $166,698.50 judgment intact, with interest continuing to accrue and a charging lien connected to any proceeds from the ranch sale attributable to Evans or his company. Evans’s failure to inherit the ranch did not erase the financial obligations created in the divorce.The case is a reminder that divorce settlements built around expected inheritances can be fragile. Courts may account for an anticipated asset, but they can also preserve jurisdiction to revisit the arrangement if circumstances change. In this case, the court did exactly that, yet Evans’s long delay in seeking relief proved decisive.For families involved in probate and divorce disputes at the same time, the ruling also shows how separate cases can shape one another. A finding of financial abuse removed Evans’s inheritance, but it did not automatically undo the divorce court’s earlier decision. The Washington Court of Appeals has now affirmed that the original judgments remain enforceable.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.