In re Estate of Yudkin, 2021 CO 2

Decedent Viacheslav Yudkin lived with Tatsiana Dareuskaya for eight years; he died intestate.
Dareuskaya claimed she was Yudkin’s common-law wife and sought priority as personal representative of his estate; Yudkin’s ex-wife Svetlana Shtutman had been appointed.
A probate magistrate found the couple cohabited and held themselves out as married to the community, but concluded no common-law marriage existed because they filed separate tax returns, maintained separate finances and accounts, owned no joint property, and Dareuskaya never took Yudkin’s name; the magistrate also questioned Dareuskaya’s credibility.
The Colorado Court of Appeals reversed, reading People v. Lucero to mean that cohabitation plus reputation as spouses alone establish a common-law marriage.
The Colorado Supreme Court granted certiorari, clarified the standard for common-law marriage in light of In re Marriage of Hogsett & Neale, and vacated the court of appeals’ judgment, remanding to the probate court to determine whether the parties mutually intended to enter a marital relationship under the refined totality-of-the-circumstances test.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Shtutman)	Defendant's Argument (Dareuskaya)	Held
Proper legal standard to prove common-law marriage	Court of appeals misapplied Lucero; magistrate permissibly weighed Lucero factors	Cohabitation, community reputation, and Dareuskaya’s ring/testimony show agreement and suffice	SC adopts Hogsett refinement: mutual consent/agreement to enter marriage + conduct manifesting that agreement; totality of circumstances; no single factor dispositive
Whether cohabitation + reputation alone establish marriage	Those factors are not dispositive; other Lucero factors may be considered	Cohabitation + reputation are the "two most clear" factors and, once shown, should end inquiry	SC rejects bright-line rule; cohabitation and reputation are important but not conclusive; court must consider all relevant evidence in context
Whether the magistrate made the necessary factual finding of mutual intent	Magistrate did not make an explicit finding that the parties agreed to be married	Testimony that Yudkin gave a ring and invited Dareuskaya to be his wife shows express agreement	SC finds the record ambiguous about a finding of mutual intent and remands for the probate court to decide intent under the refined test

People v. Lucero, 747 P.2d 660 (Colo. 1987) (set out non-exhaustive factors to infer mutual agreement to be husband and wife; emphasized cohabitation and reputation as strong indicators)