Rachea Eytcheson v. Jason Eytcheson (mem. dec.), 57A03-1607-DR-1711

Husband (Jason) began participating in his employer 401(k) in April 1992 and continued through the marriage to Wife (Rachea), who married him in December 1999; Wife filed for divorce in December 2015.
At dissolution, the 401(k) account value agreed by the parties was $237,419.76 (statement dated Sept. 30, 2015).
Husband requested that one-third of the 401(k) ($79,139.92) be set aside to him as nonmarital because he held the account for eight years before marriage (8 of 24 years = one-third), then have the remainder divided equally.
Trial court adopted Husband’s pro rata-age approach, set aside one-third to Husband, divided the rest equally, and (separately) awarded Wife 55% of "net" marital assets due to Husband’s higher earning capacity; the set-aside amount was excluded from the marital pot.
Wife appealed, arguing Husband failed to prove the amount of pre-marriage contributions or the account value at marriage, so segregation was unsupported.

Issue	Wife's Argument	Husband's Argument	Held
Whether the trial court properly set aside one-third of Husband's 401(k) as nonmarital based solely on the account's age pre-marriage	Husband failed to prove the amount contributed before marriage or the account value at marriage, so segregation was unsupported; the 401(k) should be included in the marital pot and divided accordingly	One-third set-aside is reasonable because Husband held the 401(k) for 8 of its 24 years (one-third) before marriage; exact historical values were not obtainable	Reversed: trial court abused its discretion. Husband did not meet burden to segregate; $79,139.92 must be included in the marital pot and division adjusted (Wife 55%, Husband 45%).

In re Marriage of Marek, 47 N.E.3d 1283 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016) (discusses one-pot theory of marital property and appellate review of property division)
Morey v. Morey, 49 N.E.3d 1065 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016) (party seeking segregation bears burden to prove grounds and amount to be segregated)