Jones v. Phillips ( 2020 )


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  • PRESENT: All the Justices
    ANDREA GAIL JONES
    OPINION BY
    v. Record No. 190643                                         JUSTICE D. ARTHUR KELSEY
    DECEMBER 3, 2020
    TERRY M. PHILLIPS, ET AL.
    FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF POWHATAN COUNTY
    Paul W. Cella, Judge
    In this appeal, we address two questions of first impression in Virginia. The first is
    whether an insurer’s payments on a fire insurance policy were immune from garnishment as
    “proceeds of the sale or disposition” of property held in trust under former Code § 55-20.2(C),
    recently recodified as Code § 55.1-136(C). 1 The second is whether the contractual right under
    the insurance policy to receive fire-loss payments was intangible personal property held by the
    named insured and his wife as a tenancy by the entirety. Reversing the circuit court, we answer
    both questions in the negative.
    I.
    Terry and Cathy Phillips owned their marital residence as tenants by the entirety until
    2010 when they retitled the property in the names of separate, revocable trusts as tenants in
    common. Cathy Phillips’s trust owns a 99% undivided interest in the property, and Terry
    Phillips’s trust owns a 1% undivided interest. In February 2018, the residence was severely
    damaged by a fire. The residence was covered by an insurance policy issued by Chubb & Son,
    Inc. (“Chubb”), which named “Terry M. Phillips” as the policyholder. See J.A. at 20-95. Cathy
    Phillips was not specifically named in the policy. One provision in the policy defined “[y]ou” to
    1
    In October 2019, Code § 55-20.2 was amended, renumbered, and recodified as Code
    § 55.1-136, which contains near-identical language as former Code § 55-20.2. See 2019 Acts ch.
    712, at 1339. We refer throughout this opinion to the current codification of statutes and have
    noted any technical changes in the statutes when relevant.
    include Terry Phillips and any “spouse who lives with [him],”
    id. at
    40, 
    and another provision
    stated that “[i]n case of death” Chubb would “cover your spouse, your legal representative or any
    person having proper temporary custody of your property until a legal representative is appointed
    and qualified,” and “any member of your household who is a covered person at the time of
    death.”
    Id. at 83.
    Seeking satisfaction of a civil judgment that she had obtained against Terry Phillips,
    Andrea Jones filed this action to garnish insurance payments from Chubb arising out of the fire
    damage to the home owned by the reciprocal trusts. Terry and Cathy Phillips filed a motion to
    quash the garnishment, arguing that the insurance payments were immune from garnishment
    under Code § 55.1-136(C). That statute protects “proceeds of the sale or disposition” of property
    that was formerly held as a tenancy by the entirety and then conveyed to separate revocable or
    irrevocable trusts. See Code § 55.1-136(C). Terry and Cathy Phillips further argued that
    irrespective of any statutory immunity protecting the reciprocal trusts’ ownership of the property
    subject to a “sale or disposition,”
    id., the contractual right
    to the insurance payments constituted
    intangible personal property owned by Terry and Cathy Phillips as tenants by the entirety, and
    thus, these payments could not be seized by a judgment creditor of only one of them.
    Jones argued in response that the insurance payments were not statutorily immune from
    garnishment as “proceeds of the sale or disposition” of trust property under Code § 55.1-136(C)
    because no “sale” or “disposition” had ever occurred. Jones also contested the alternative
    argument by Terry and Cathy Phillips that they had acquired as tenants by the entirety the
    contractual right under the insurance policy to the fire-damage payments. 2
    2
    “[I]t is not uncommon for married couples,” Jones observed, “to designate investment
    or other asset accounts as ‘tenants by the entirety.’” J.A. at 140. “Here, however, there is not
    such [a] designation in the insurance contract between Mr. Phillips and Chubb.”
    Id. Jones also 2
           Accepting the primary argument by Terry and Cathy Phillips, the circuit court granted the
    motion to quash and dismissed the garnishment proceeding on the ground that Code § 55.1-
    136(C) protected the insurance payments from garnishment as “proceeds of the sale or
    disposition” of property owned by the reciprocal trusts. The court did not address the alternative
    argument asserted by Terry and Cathy Phillips.
    II.
    On appeal, Jones argues that the circuit court erroneously held that Code § 55.1-136(C)
    immunized the insurance payments from garnishment on the ground that they were “proceeds of
    the sale or disposition” of the property held in trust. For the following reasons, we agree.
    A.
    “In Virginia, garnishment is regarded . . . as an independent suit by the judgment-debtor
    in the name of the judgment-creditor against the garnishee.” Butler v. Butler, 
    219 Va. 164
    , 165-
    66 (1978); see also Levine’s Loan Off. v. Starke, 
    140 Va. 712
    , 714 (1924) (“Garnishment is a
    statutory proceeding to enforce the lien of a writ of fieri facias on a liability of any other person
    than the judgment debtor . . . .”). Garnishment is “substantially an action at law.” Lynch v.
    Johnson, 
    196 Va. 516
    , 521 (1954). While “[o]rdinarily, the only adjudicable issue is whether the
    garnishee is liable to the judgment-debtor, and if so, the amount due,” an additional issue may be
    whether the garnishee has immunity from garnishment. See 
    Butler, 219 Va. at 166
    .
    Absent an applicable common-law or statutory exemption, see, e.g., Code §§ 8.01-512.4
    and 38.2-3339, insurance payments are not exempt from garnishment. “An insurance contract to
    cover risks like liability or fire insurance builds no cash value and is payable only upon the
    happening of the named contingency. If the insurance company’s obligation to distribute the
    asserted that Cathy Phillips was not a “named insured,” and the insurance policy covered “many
    relatives, spouses among them, as covered or insured individuals.” See
    id. at
    138.
    3
    
    proceeds becomes fixed and definite, then the company could be summoned as garnishee prior to
    payment to the insured.” Doug Rendleman, Enforcement of Judgments and Liens in Virginia
    § 4.8[B], at 4-51 (3d ed. 2014); see also Kent Sinclair & Leigh B. Middleditch, Jr., Virginia Civil
    Procedure § 15.7[C], at 1265 (6th ed. 2014) (observing that “insurance proceeds[] may be
    garnished”).
    B.
    Under the common law, “where a tenancy by the entirety in the fee simple is once created
    the property is completely immune from the claims of creditors against either husband or wife
    alone.” Vasilion v. Vasilion, 
    192 Va. 735
    , 740 (1951). In 2000, the General Assembly “broke
    new ground” by authorizing “a husband and wife to convey certain tenancy by the entirety real
    estate to ‘their joint revocable or irrevocable trust, or in equal shares to their separate revocable
    or irrevocable trusts’ without losing its tenancy by the entirety status.” J. Rodney Johnson, Wills,
    Trusts, and Estates, 34 U. Rich. L. Rev. 1069, 1076 (2000) (quoting Code § 55-20.1 (2000)). 3
    Recently recodified as Code § 55.1-136(C), the statute extends that immunity to “any
    proceeds of the sale or disposition” of tenancy-by-the-entirety property conveyed to trusts, thus
    granting those proceeds immunity as if they were tenancy-by-the-entirety property. In this case,
    the parties concede that the residence was not sold. The only remaining question is whether the
    insurance payments were proceeds of a disposition of the residence.
    In the vocabulary of law, a “disposition” is defined as “[t]he act of transferring
    something to another’s care or possession” or “the relinquishing of property,” Black’s Law
    3
    This provision was originally codified in 2000 as Code § 55-20.1, but it was amended
    and moved to Code § 55-20.2 in 2001. See 2001 Acts ch. 718, at 968-69. In 2019, former Code
    § 55-20.2 was recodified as Code § 55.1-136. See supra note 1.
    4
    Dictionary 592 (11th ed. 2019) (emphasis added), 4 and the “[a]ct of disposing; transferring to
    the care or possession of another” or “[t]he parting with, alienation of, or giving up property,”
    Black’s Law Dictionary 471 (6th ed. 1990) (emphasis added). 5 By including “disposition” in
    Code § 55.1-136(C), the legislature expanded the immunity from creditors to all forms of
    transferring property outside the context of a voluntary sale. Such dispositions could include
    foreclosures, judicial sales, condemnations, and any other voluntary or involuntary transfers of
    property.
    Virginia law has never considered an insurance payment for property loss to be an
    implied transfer of anything to the insurer. As we have said in other contexts, an insurance
    policy is a “personal contract” that “inures to the benefit of the party with whom it is made, and
    indemnifies him against loss; and . . . the amount paid by the company ‘is in no proper or just
    sense the proceeds of the property.’” Thompson v. Gearheart, 
    137 Va. 427
    , 434 (1923)
    (emphasis added) (citation omitted); see also 
    Lynch, 196 Va. at 522
    ; Clements v. Clements, 
    167 Va. 223
    , 233 (1936). We see no reason to take a different conceptual course in this case.
    That said, we acknowledge that “disposition” is sometimes used in another sense — to
    describe a person’s “temperament or character” or “personal makeup,” Black’s Law Dictionary
    593 (11th ed. 2019). For example, one might say that an emotionally damaged man has a hot-
    headed disposition. But we would hardly say that a fire-damaged house has a smoldering
    disposition or, for that matter, any “disposition” at all. A house, in common vernacular, does not
    4
    See also Black’s Law Dictionary 572 (10th ed. 2014); Black’s Law Dictionary 539 (9th
    ed. 2009); Black’s Law Dictionary 505 (8th ed. 2004); Black’s Law Dictionary 484 (7th ed.
    1999).
    5
    See also Black’s Law Dictionary 423 (5th ed. 1979); Black’s Law Dictionary 558 (rev.
    4th ed. 1968).
    5
    have a good or a bad disposition. Such an anthropomorphic understanding of “disposition”
    cannot be fairly attributed to the carefully worded text of Code § 55.1-136(C).
    Employing the established legal meaning of “disposition,” we conclude that the
    garnishment immunity provided by Code § 55.1-136(C) does not apply to Chubb’s insurance
    payments. The reciprocal trusts, as property owners, did not sell or otherwise dispose of the
    property. Chubb did not acquire any ownership interest (or any legal or equitable interest at all)
    in the fire-damaged house. No disposition of the house — according to the word’s most
    common legal usage — ever occurred because the fire was not an “act of transferring” the
    property to the insurer or to anyone else. See Black’s Law Dictionary 592 (11th ed. 2019).
    C.
    Our dissenting colleagues offer several procedural and substantive rejoinders that warrant
    a brief response.
    1.
    The dissent’s procedural objections begin with the contention that Jones does not argue
    the transfer definition that we embrace. See post at 29. We disagree. On appeal, Jones contends
    that “insurance proceeds are not a disposition under § 55-20.2” because “the property has been
    neither sold, nor devised, nor given away.” See Appellant’s Br. at 22 (altering capitalization).
    These are all actions that involve a property transfer of some kind. Jones adds, “No disposition
    occurred in the instant case; the Phillips[es] retain all the sticks in the [p]roperty’s bundle.”
    Id. at 22.
    Her reference to “sticks in the property’s bundle,” of course, refers to individual property
    rights. See United States v. Craft, 
    535 U.S. 274
    , 278 (2002) (noting that “bundle of sticks” is a
    “common idiom describ[ing] property” and refers to “a collection of individual rights”); Cygnus
    Newport-Phase 1B, LLC v. City of Portsmouth, 
    292 Va. 573
    , 586 (2016) (referring to the
    “property rights ‘bundle of sticks’” and stating that “no stick was taken out of that bundle”).
    6
    Equally clear, her reference to the Phillipses “retain[ing] all the sticks,” Appellant’s Br. at 22,
    refers to the fact that Terry and Cathy Phillips did not transfer any of their property rights. There
    is no basis, therefore, for the dissent’s view that Jones waived the argument that the proper
    definition of “disposition” under Code § 55.1-136(C) involves some form of property transfer.
    The dissent also contends that Jones “implicitly asserts” on brief “that the meaning of
    disposition” is ambiguous. See post at 33. There is no such implication. Read most fairly,
    Jones’s argument, see Appellant’s Br. at 16-18, suggests only that Code § 55.1-136 was an
    explicit legislative response to an ambiguous public policy issue concerning how far, if at all, to
    extend the reach of tenancy-by-the-entirety protections. Conspicuously absent from the explicit
    statutory language, Jones points out, is any reference to the highly ambiguous question whether
    those protections should apply to insurance proceeds. Counsel for Jones made the same
    assertion in oral argument. See Oral Argument Audio at 2:05 to 2:18 (“As it properly did in the
    Pitts decision, this Court should defer this question to the legislature to weigh the competing
    public policy issues connected therewith and pass the law best suited to address those different
    interests.”). We thus do not interpret Jones’s discussion of caselaw as a waiver of her arguments
    that the legislature did not intend to protect insurance payments under Code § 55.1-136, as
    evidenced “through the words used,” see Oral Argument Audio at 13:54 to 14:09, and that the
    term “disposition” requires some type of transfer of “the sticks in the [p]roperty’s bundle,” see
    Appellant’s Br. at 22.
    2.
    Turning to the merits of this dispute, the dissent rejects the act-of-transferring definition
    as overly simplistic, see post at 28 (noting that things should be “as simple as possible, but not
    simpler”), and criticizes our focus on the “vocabulary of law,” see post at 31-33, 40-41.
    Apparently backing the analysis down from “simpler” to merely “simple” and then expanding
    7
    the linguistic search beyond the vocabulary of law, the dissent contends that the house fire
    constituted a “disposition” defined as a “final settlement or determination.” See post at 31-32,
    39. This particular usage of “disposition,” however, has a specific denotation unique to legal
    terms, such as a “court’s disposition of the case,” a judicial “judgment or sentence,” or a
    “termination of a case.” See Black’s Law Dictionary 592 (11th ed. 2019). This meaning of the
    term can be found in dozens of Virginia statutes. Decisionmakers, most notably courts, 6 make
    these kinds of “dispositions.” Burnt houses do not.
    What the dissent appears to be saying is that the insurer settled an insurance claim after
    determining that coverage existed and thus made a “final settlement or determination” — ergo, a
    disposition. See post at 39. That interpretation, however, alters the syntax of Code § 55.1-
    136(C), which refers to a “disposition of such property,” not a coverage disposition of an
    insurance company. The insurer did not dispose “of such” fire-damaged house. Nor did anyone
    else.
    3.
    In a single sentence, the dissent suggests that it is “worth considering” that an early
    edition of Black’s Law Dictionary included “destruction of property” as an alternative definition
    of “disposition.” See post at 32. That enticing understatement, however, relies upon the 4th
    edition of Black’s Law Dictionary published in 1957. After repeating the traditional act-of-
    transferring definition, the 4th edition added “destruction of property” as an alternative
    definition. See Black’s Law Dictionary 558 (rev. 4th ed. 1968). The only basis identified in
    Black’s Law Dictionary for this alternative definition, however, was Pioneer Cooperage Co. v.
    Commissioner, 
    53 F.2d 43
    (8th Cir. 1931), a tax case addressing whether insect damage to
    6
    See, e.g., Code §§ 16.1-69.58, 16.1-305.1, 17.1-403, 19.2-303.6, and 19.2-360.
    8
    timber qualified for a tax deduction. No court since 1931 has cited Pioneer Cooperage Co. as an
    exemplar use of the term “disposition,” and it must be observed that few legal jurists or scholars
    find the Byzantine use of English words in the Internal Revenue Code to be a reliable guide for
    discovering their plain and ordinary meaning outside of that unique context.
    The dissent’s implicit reliance upon Pioneer Cooperage Co., see post at 32 (quoting the
    4th edition of Black’s Law Dictionary with the citation to Pioneer Cooperage Co. omitted),
    suffers from a more serious weakness. The editors of the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th
    editions of Black’s Law Dictionary removed the alternative definition of “destruction of
    property” that had been included in the 4th edition. The fairest inference from this conspicuous
    retraction is that for 40 years, linguistic experts entrusted with the most widely read legal
    dictionary in American law have considered the traditional act-of-transferring definition to be the
    plain meaning of disposition and the destruction-of-property definition to be a curious, narrow,
    or strained meaning of that word. If so, we agree with them.
    4.
    The dissent places a guarded emphasis on our decision in Pitts v. United States, 
    242 Va. 254
    (1991), in support of its interpretation of disposition in Code § 55.1-136(C). See post at 35-
    38. Pitts, however, did not attempt to define disposition. Nor did Pitts mention Code § 55.1-
    136(C), which had not yet been enacted. A single sentence in Pitts merely notes that “some
    courts” outside of Virginia have applied tenancy-by-the-entirety protection to various
    circumstances, including “payments of insurance claims,” 
    Pitts, 242 Va. at 262
    . Pitts cites none
    of these foreign cases. The only citation is to an American Law Reports annotation. See
    id. (citing Michael A.
    DiSabatino, Annotation, Proceeds or Derivatives of Real Property Held by
    Entirety as Themselves Held by Entirety, 
    22 A.L.R. 4th 459
    (1983)). That annotation includes
    “some” cases going one way on the subject and “some” cases going the other way. Compare
    9
    DiSabatino, supra, § 14[a], at 518 (“§ 14[a] Insurance payments for injury to realty — Held to be
    owned by entirety”), with
    id. § 14[b], at
    519 (“§ 14[b] Insurance payments for injury to realty —
    Held not to be owned by entirety”). 7
    The very next sentence in Pitts, moreover, expressly disclaims the some-courts dictum:
    “We confine the reach of our decision to our answer to the question as certified, based upon the
    facts detailed in the order of certification,” 
    Pitts, 242 Va. at 262
    . The import of this statement is
    unmistakable. The precedential “reach of our decision” in Pitts does not extend to any issue
    other than the specific “answer to the question” posed by the federal court’s certification order in
    that case and does not attempt to resolve future cases involving facts not “detailed” in that
    certification order. See
    id. Pitts addressed what
    happens to a married couple’s real property held as a tenancy by the
    entirety when they sell it to someone else. Under Virginia law, Pitts held, the answer was easy:
    Whatever the buyer gives the married couple in return for the transfer of such property (whether
    cash, a check, or a promissory note) retains its character as property held as a tenancy by the
    entirety. See
    id. at
    261-62. 
    This holding deserves the protection of stare decisis. “[W]hen a
    court of last resort has established a precedent, after full deliberation upon the issue by the court,
    7
    None of the out-of-state cases cited by the dissent address a statutory “sale or
    disposition” provision similar to Code § 55.1-136(C). Nor do any of these courts mention, much
    less hold, that a “disposition” of property (the sole issue before us on this point) includes
    insurance payments. See post at 38 (citing Cooper v. Cooper, 
    284 S.W.2d 617
    , 620 (Ark. 1955)
    (applying a common law rule in Arkansas applicable to “derivatives of real property”); Regnante
    v. Baldassare, 
    448 N.E.2d 775
    , 777-78 (Mass. App. Ct. 1983) (applying a common law rule in
    Massachusetts to proceeds arising from a “destruction” of property); Gaunt v. Shelter Mut. Ins.,
    
    808 S.W.2d 401
    , 404-05 (Mo. Ct. App. 1991) (applying a common law rule in Missouri to
    proceeds arising out of “damage” to property)). The dissent also cites McDivitt v. Pymatuning
    Mutual Fire Insurance, 
    449 A.2d 612
    , 615-16 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1982), but that case undermines the
    dissent’s position by holding that “the fact that the property owned by the [married couple] was
    held by the entireties [is] of no real significance to the resolution of the issue whether [one
    spouse] may be entitled to one-half of the proceeds from the fire insurance, payable as a result of
    the destruction of the entireties’ property.”
    10
    the precedent will not be treated lightly or ignored, in the absence of flagrant error or mistake.”
    Selected Risks Ins. v. Dean, 
    233 Va. 260
    , 265 (1987) (emphasis added). The some-courts
    dictum, however, is just that — a mere dictum undeserving of any stare decisis weight.
    The dissent seeks to reinforce its use of the Pitts some-courts dictum by suggesting that
    the General Assembly, by enacting the predecessor to Code § 55.1-136(C), “perhaps” codified
    the dictum by “accepting this Court’s invitation to do so.” See post at 36. After all, we presume
    that the legislature is “aware of this Court’s precedents” and writes laws “with knowledge of our
    previous decisions in this area of the law.” See post at 38 (citation omitted). By taking this
    view, the dissent seems to be applying the legislative-acquiescence doctrine without expressly
    mentioning it by name. If so, it is being misapplied.
    The legislative-acquiescence doctrine presumes that unless a newly enacted statute
    suggests otherwise, the legislature intends the statute to be interpreted consistent with prior
    binding precedent addressing the point being codified. Even when properly applied, however,
    the presumption is weak. See United States v. Wells, 
    519 U.S. 482
    , 495-96 (1997) (commenting
    that “it is at best treacherous to find in congressional silence alone the adoption of a controlling
    rule of law” (alteration and citation omitted)). And the doctrine provides no presumption at all
    when improperly applied.
    The legislative-acquiescence doctrine presumes acquiescence to judicial “precedents,”
    Lambert v. Sea Oats Condo. Ass’n, 
    293 Va. 245
    , 254 (2017), not obiter dicta. As noted earlier,
    the some-courts dictum in Pitts is a single sentence citing an annotation that surveys the split of
    authority on the issue of insurance proceeds. That non-precedential remark is immediately
    followed by a disclaimer “confin[ing] the reach of [the Pitts] decision” to the specific question
    presented, which had nothing to do with insurance payments. See 
    Pitts, 242 Va. at 262
    .
    Insisting that the legislature has silently agreed with the Pitts some-courts dictum and implicitly
    11
    codified it in Code § 55.1-136(C) “merely piles one interpretative inference upon another,”
    Loudoun Cnty. v. Richardson, 
    298 Va. 528
    , ___, 
    841 S.E.2d 629
    , 641 (2020) (Kelsey, J.,
    dissenting).
    III.
    Offering an alternative argument in support of the circuit court’s judgment, Terry and
    Cathy Phillips contend that the contractual right under the insurance policy to the fire-damage
    payments constitutes intangible personal property owned by them as tenants by the entirety.
    Thus, even if Code § 55.1-136(C) provides no statutory “disposition” immunity from creditors,
    the common-law doctrine of tenancy by the entirety (extended by statutes and caselaw to
    personal property) protects the insurance payments from garnishment by a judgment creditor of
    Terry Phillips. We disagree.
    A.
    The common law has recognized the tenancy by the entirety for centuries. See 2 William
    Blackstone, Commentaries *182; 7 Michael Allan Wolf, Powell on Real Property § 52.01[1], at
    52-3 (2020). 8 In a long line of cases, we have synthesized this estate’s five essential
    characteristics and defined it as a property interest in which the co-owners hold (i) unity of title,
    (ii) unity of estate, (iii) unity of time, (iv) unity of possession, and (v) unity of marriage. See
    Evans v. Evans, 
    290 Va. 176
    , 183 (2015); Rogers v. Rogers, 
    257 Va. 323
    , 326 (1999); 
    Pitts, 242 Va. at 258-59
    ; Gant v. Gant, 
    237 Va. 588
    , 591 (1989); Jones v. Conwell, 
    227 Va. 176
    , 181
    (1984). These unities reflect the unities of a joint tenancy “modified by the common law
    8
    See also 2 James Kent, Commentaries on American Law 132 (2d ed. 1832); 1 John
    Tayloe Lomax, Digest of the Laws Respecting Real Property 616 (2d ed. 1855). See generally
    John V. Orth, Tenancy by the Entirety: The Strange Career of the Common-Law Marital Estate,
    1997 BYU L. Rev. 35, 35-40 (1997).
    12
    principle that husband and wife are but one person.” 1 Raleigh C. Minor & Frederick D.G.
    Ribble, The Law of Real Property § 852, at 1096 (2d ed. 1928); see 
    Jones, 227 Va. at 181
    .
    The “grand incident” of a joint tenancy, which is also shared by a tenancy by the entirety,
    is the right of survivorship. See 1 Minor & Ribble, supra, §§ 847, 855, at 1092, 1099. In the
    context of a tenancy by the entirety, the right of survivorship means that “[u]pon the death of
    either spouse, the whole of the estate by the entireties remains in the survivor.” 
    Vasilion, 192 Va. at 740
    . The common law presumed that a conveyance to more than one grantee created a
    joint tenancy, except for conveyances to a husband and wife, which created a tenancy by the
    entirety if all of the required unities were present. See
    id. at
    739; 
    American Nat’l Bank of Wash.,
    D.C. v. Taylor, 
    112 Va. 1
    , 4 (1911); American Law of Property § 6.6, at 24 (A. James Casner
    ed., 1952); 7 Wolf, supra, § 52.01[2], at 52-3; see also Charles Alfred Graves, Notes on the Law
    of Real Property § 145, at 176 (1912); 4 Kent, supra note 8, at 361; Paul H. Melnick, Forms of
    Holding Title, in 2 Real Estate Transactions in Virginia §§ 8.202, 8.3, at 1066, 1070 (Neil S.
    Kessler & Paul H. Melnick eds., 5th ed. 2019); 1 Minor & Ribble, supra, § 838, at 1085-86.
    Most scholars agree that the early common law required little, if any, express manifestation of
    intent to create a tenancy by the entirety with the right of survivorship when the five unities were
    present. 9
    9
    See Joseph L. Lyle, Jr., Virginia Extends Entireties Doctrine, 20 Wash. & Lee L. Rev.
    260, 261-62 (1963) (“Thus it developed [at common law] that virtually any estate created
    between husband and wife, where the four unities were present, resulted in a tenancy by the
    entirety.”); Robert A. Ryland, Tenancy by the Entirety in Virginia, 
    24 Va. L
    . Rev. 689, 689
    (1938) (“At common law no expressed intention in a deed or will was necessary to create either
    joint tenancy or tenancy by the entirety.”); Emerson G. Spies, Some Considerations in Conveying
    to Husband and Wife, 
    34 Va. L
    . Rev. 480, 482 (1948) (“At common law joint tenancies were
    most favored by the courts and arose presumptively whenever the grantees were not husband and
    wife and the four unities of time, title, interest, and possession were present . . . .”).
    13
    A long series of legislative enactments, however, have superseded the common law
    presumption favoring the right of survivorship. “[B]y statute enacted as early as 1787,
    survivorship between joint tenants was abolished.” 
    Vasilion, 192 Va. at 741
    (citation omitted);
    see 
    Pitts, 242 Va. at 259
    ; Allen v. Parkey, 
    154 Va. 739
    , 744-45 (1929), adhered to on reh’g, 
    154 Va. 739
    (1930). 10 This statute, however, did not “abolish survivorship between tenants by the
    entirety,” Vasilion, 192 Va. At 741 (citation omitted), because a tenancy by the entirety “is
    conceptually different from a joint tenancy,” Melnick, supra, § 8.3, at 1070. In a tenancy by the
    entirety, the husband and wife own “a sole, and not a joint-tenancy. They have no moieties.
    Each holds the entirety. They are one in law, and their estate one and indivisible.” Thornton v.
    Thornton, 24 Va. (3 Rand.) 179, 183 (1825) (emphases in original). A “moiety” in common law
    is a separate interest. See Black’s Law Dictionary 1024 (11th ed. 2019). The defining feature of
    a tenancy by the entirety was that, as between husband and wife, there were no moieties. See
    
    Thornton, 24 Va. at 183-87
    . 11
    In the mid to late 1800s, the General Assembly enacted several statutes specifically
    addressing tenancies by the entirety. See 
    Pitts, 242 Va. at 259
    ; 
    Vasilion, 192 Va. at 741
    -42;
    10
    With respect to joint tenancies, the abolition of survivorship was modified by a
    statutory exception allowing the right of survivorship when the intent to create it was explicitly
    stated. See Code 1849, ch. 116, § 19, at 502-03 (current version at Code § 55.1-134); see also 1
    Minor & Ribble, supra, § 848, at 1093.
    11
    See also 2 
    Blackstone, supra, at *182
    (“[F]or husband and wife being considered as
    one person in law, they cannot take the estate by moieties, but both are seised of the entirety.”); 2
    Kent, supra note 8, at 132 (“If an estate in land be given to the husband and wife, or a joint
    purchase by them during coverture, they are not properly joint tenants, nor tenants in common,
    for they are but one person in law, and cannot take by moieties.”); 1 Lomax, supra note 8, at 616
    (“As there can be no moieties between husband and wife, they cannot be joint tenants; therefore,
    where an estate is conveyed to a man and his wife, and their heirs, it is not a joint tenancy; for
    joint tenants take by moieties, and are each seised of an undivided moiety of the whole.”).
    14
    
    Allen, 154 Va. at 744-45
    ; American Nat’l Bank of Wash., 
    D.C., 112 Va. at 4
    . 12 The statutes
    applied to conveyances to a husband and wife “as to estates of inheritance in 1850, and as to all
    estates, real or personal, by the Code of 1887.” 1 Minor & Ribble, supra, § 855, at 1100. 13
    These statutes reversed the common-law presumption that a husband and wife took property as
    one person without separate moieties, as stated in the Code of 1887: “[I]f hereafter any estate,
    real or personal, be conveyed or devised to a husband and his wife, they shall take and hold the
    same by moieties in like manner as if a distinct moiety had been given to each by a separate
    conveyance,” unless “it manifestly appears from the tenor of the instrument that it was intended
    the part of the one dying should then belong to the other[],” see Code 1887, ch. 107, §§ 2430-
    2431, at 593.
    At this point in the statutory evolution of these concepts, “tenancy by entireties [was]
    itself abolished, except where the deed or will manifests an intent that it shall continue.” 
    Allen, 154 Va. at 745
    (quoting Graves, supra, § 152, at 182). “That is, after 1888 a tenancy by the
    entirety could not be created in any estate [real or personal] unless survivorship was expressly
    provided for in the instrument of transfer.” Ritchie, supra note 12, at 615. The “practical effect
    of the statute” was “to convert the tenancy by entireties into a tenancy in common, destroying
    survivorship.” 1 Minor & Ribble, supra, § 857, at 1102 (emphases in original); see Allen, 154
    12
    See also Graves, supra, § 152, at 181-82; 1 Minor & Ribble, supra, § 855, at 1100;
    John Ritchie 3d, Tenancies by the Entirety in Real Property with Particular Reference to the Law
    of Virginia, 
    28 Va. L
    . Rev. 608, 613-14 (1942); Spies, supra note 9, at 485-86.
    13
    Compare Code 1849, ch. 116, § 18, at 502 (“And if hereafter an estate of inheritance
    be conveyed or devised to a husband and his wife, one moiety of such estate shall, on the death
    of either, descend to his or her heirs, subject to debts, curtesy or dower, as the case may be.”
    (emphasis added)), with Code 1887, ch. 107, § 2430, at 593 (“And if hereafter any estate, real or
    personal, be conveyed or devised to a husband and his wife, they shall take and hold the same by
    moieties in like manner as if a distinct moiety had been given to each by a separate conveyance.”
    (emphasis 
    added)). 15 Va. at 745
    . “In other words, [the statute] reversed the common law presumption that one
    transferring an estate by deed or will to a husband and wife intended them to be tenants by the
    entirety unless the language of the instrument clearly disclosed a contrary intent.” Ritchie, supra
    note 12, at 615.
    Later enactments have expanded, reorganized, and recodified these statutes. The
    statutory presumption against the right of survivorship, however, remains securely intact. At the
    time of the circuit court’s judgment in this case, former Code §§ 55-20 to 55-21 addressed these
    issues. As noted earlier, see supra note 1, in 2019 the General Assembly amended, renumbered,
    and recodified these provisions as Code §§ 55.1-134, -135, and -136. See 2019 Acts ch. 712, at
    1339. The changes were intended, in relevant part, to “improve the structure and clarity of
    statutes pertaining to real and personal property in the Commonwealth,” see Virginia Code
    Commission, Report on the Revision of Title 55 of the Code of Virginia, S. Doc. No. 5, at v
    (2018). With respect to the provisions at issue in this case, the Virginia Code Commission made
    only “[t]echnical changes,” see
    id. at
    10-12, 
    for the purpose of making the language “clear,
    consistent, and modern,” see
    id. at
    x-xi. No substantive changes were intended. For the purpose
    of deciding the present case, therefore, we see no interpretative differences between the statutes
    as they exist today and as they existed at the time the circuit court decided this case.
    Under Code § 55.1-135, a joint tenancy in real or personal property, including “any
    written memorial of a chose in action,” is presumed to be without the right of survivorship unless
    “the expression ‘with survivorship,’ or any equivalent language, is employed in such titling.”
    Unlike a tenancy by the entirety, however, a mere joint tenancy (even one with the right of
    survivorship) does not protect the jointly held property from the creditors of one of the co-
    owners. Any such separate interest can be attached, garnished, and partitioned. See 
    Jones, 227 Va. at 181
    -82; 1 Minor & Ribble, supra, § 854, at 1097-98; see also Timothy H. Guare, Mapping
    16
    the Plan, in 1 Estate Planning in Virginia § 3.203, at 144 (Marie McKenney Tavernini ed., 5th
    ed. 2016); Melnick, supra, § 8.203, at 1069.
    The language regarding conveyances to a husband and wife, originally enacted in the
    Code of 1887, is now found in Code § 55.1-135. The statutory presumption against the right of
    survivorship still applies to property that is conveyed jointly in the names of both spouses:
    If any real or personal property is conveyed or devised to spouses,
    they shall take and hold such property by moieties in the same
    manner as if a distinct moiety had been given to each spouse by a
    separate conveyance, unless language as provided in this section or
    in § 55.1-136 is used that designates the tenancy as a joint tenancy
    or a tenancy by the entirety and all requirements for holding
    property by such tenancy are met.
    Code § 55.1-135. 14 The “language as provided . . . in § 55.1-136,”
    id., which is deemed
    sufficient to establish the right-of-survivorship prerequisite to a tenancy by the entirety, is stated
    14
    The Virginia Code Commission noted that this sentence was relocated to Code § 55.1-
    135 “because it is more logically located with other provisions regarding joint ownership.” See
    Virginia Code Commission, Report on the Revision of Title 55 of the Code of Virginia, S. Doc.
    No. 5, at 11 (2018). Prior to its relocation in 2019, this provision was found in Code §§ 55-20
    and -21. The first statute provided:
    When any joint tenant dies, before or after the vesting of the estate,
    whether the estate is real or personal, or whether partition could
    have been compelled or not, his part shall descend to his heirs, or
    pass by devise, or go to his personal representative, subject to
    debts or distribution, as if he had been a tenant in common. And if
    hereafter any estate, real or personal, is conveyed or devised to a
    husband and his wife, they shall take and hold the same by
    moieties in like manner as if a distinct moiety had been given to
    each by a separate conveyance.
    Code § 55-20 (2018) (emphases added). The second statute provided:
    Section 55-20 [abolishing any presumption of survivorship] shall
    not apply to any estate which joint tenants have as fiduciaries, nor
    to any real or personal property transferred to persons in their own
    right when it manifestly appears from the tenor of the instrument
    transferring such property or memorializing the existence of a
    chose in action, that it was intended the part of the one dying
    17
    in Code § 55.1-136(A): “An intent that the part of the one dying should belong to the other shall
    be manifest from a designation of the spouses as ‘tenants by the entireties’ or ‘tenants by the
    entirety.’”
    When property is conveyed to spouses, therefore, Virginia law presumes against a
    tenancy by the entirety unless all required common-law unities exist, and the instrument uses (i)
    the language in Code § 55.1-136 designating the spouses as “tenants by the entireties” or
    “tenants by the entirety” or (ii) the language in Code § 55.1-135, expressly stating “the
    expression ‘with survivorship,’ or similar language” in the instrument. See Code § 55.1-135. No
    tenancy by the entirety can be created by an instrument that does not manifestly identify the
    property interest in this manner. See 
    Allen, 154 Va. at 745
    (stating, in explanation of the
    predecessor statute to Code § 55.1-136, that “tenancy by entireties is itself abolished, except
    where the deed or will manifests an intent that it shall continue” (quoting Graves, supra, § 152,
    at 182)). 15 See generally Nancy Newton Rogers, Transferring Assets Outside of Probate, in 2
    Estate Planning in Virginia, supra, § 10.402, at 836 (“If no survivorship is specified, a tenancy in
    common results.”).
    The right of survivorship must be manifest because it dramatically changes the ordinary
    succession of property upon an owner’s death. “Upon the death of either spouse the whole of the
    estate by the entireties remains in the survivor,” and thus, “[t]he heirs of the deceased spouse
    inherit no part of the property so held. The entire estate remains exclusively in the surviving
    should then belong to the others.
    Code § 55-21 (2018) (emphases added).
    15
    See also 9 Dale M. Cecka, Lawrence D. Diehl, & James R. Cottrell, Virginia Practice
    Series: Family Law § 4.3, at 96 (2020 ed.) (“When property is acquired by a husband and wife, a
    deed or other like instrument must specify that a tenancy by the entirety is intended, or otherwise
    a tenancy in common will be established . . . .”).
    18
    spouse.” 
    Vasilion, 192 Va. at 740
    (emphasis added); see Johnson v. McCarty, 
    202 Va. 49
    , 55-56
    (1960); Smith v. Smith, 
    200 Va. 77
    , 81 (1958) (explaining that in a tenancy by the entirety, each
    spouse is “seized with the entire estate, and upon the death of one the survivor takes the whole”);
    Guare, supra, § 3.204, at 144; Melnick, supra, § 8.203, at 1068; 1 Minor & Ribble, supra,
    §§ 847, 854, at 1092, 1098.
    A tenancy by the entirety also has an impact on each spouse’s rights while both are alive.
    Unlike a mere joint tenancy with a right of survivorship, a tenancy by the entirety “may be
    severed only by mutual consent of the spouses or by divorce,” In re Bunker, 
    312 F.3d 145
    , 151
    (4th Cir. 2002). “Although husband and wife acting together may alienate or encumber the
    entireties property, ‘neither spouse can convey [or encumber] any part of the property by his or
    her sole act.’”
    Id. (quoting Hausman v.
    Hausman, 
    233 Va. 1
    , 3 (1987)). And, most importantly
    for the purposes of our case, this unique form of co-ownership provides each spouse with
    protection against the judgment creditors of the other spouse. Under the common law, “property
    held as tenants by the entireties is exempt from the claims of creditors who do not have joint
    judgments against the husband and wife.” 
    Rogers, 257 Va. at 326
    ; see also 
    Evans, 290 Va. at 184
    ; 
    Jones, 227 Va. at 181
    ; 
    Vasilion, 192 Va. at 740
    ; In re 
    Bunker, 312 F.3d at 151-52
    ; Reid v.
    Richardson, 
    304 F.2d 351
    , 353 (4th Cir. 1962). 16
    B.
    Under the early common law, a tenancy by the entirety protected only real property. See
    2 American Law of Property, supra, § 6.6, at 30. In Oliver v. Givens, as a matter of first
    16
    This case does not present an opportunity to address the efficacy of “an attempt to
    convey property to spouses as joint tenants with the right of survivorship,” Melnick, supra, § 8.3,
    at 1072-73 (suggesting that “[t]he interplay between section 55.1-134(B), allowing survivorship
    estates, and the common law notion of the ‘oneness’ of a married couple would appear to convert
    the tenancy automatically (in Virginia) to a tenancy by the entirety” and noting “[a]n old and
    brief line of cases indicat[ing] this result”).
    19
    impression, we held that “personal property as well as realty may be held by a husband and wife
    as tenants by the entireties.” 
    204 Va. 123
    , 126 (1963). We applied this principle to “proceeds
    derived from a voluntary sale of real estate held by the entireties,” holding that these proceeds
    “are likewise held by the entireties.” See
    id. at
    126-27. We affirmed this holding in Pitts by
    holding that a promissory note given in exchange for the sale of real property also retained the
    tenancy-by-the-entirety status of the underlying property as proceeds of the sale. 
    See 242 Va. at 260-61
    .
    In 1999, the General Assembly enacted a statute confirming that personal property could
    be held as a tenancy by the entirety. See J. Rodney Johnson, Wills, Trusts, and Estates, 33 U.
    Rich. L. Rev 1075, 1081-82 (1999) (commenting on the enactment of former Code § 55-20.1).
    Personal property can include tangible and intangible property. In Virginia, “[a] chose in action
    is intangible personal property.” Huaman v. Aquino, 
    272 Va. 170
    , 175 (2006); see also First
    Nat’l Bank of Richmond v. Holland, 
    99 Va. 495
    , 503 (1901). “Any right which has not been
    reduced to possession is a chose in action.” 
    Holland, 99 Va. at 503
    . A contractual right,
    including a right to insurance payments, is a classic example of a chose in action. See 17 Samuel
    Williston & Richard A. Lord, A Treatise on the Law of Contracts § 49:119, at 106-07 (4th ed.
    2015) (“A contract of insurance is a chose in action. That is to say, it confers a right to bring a
    legal action to recover a sum of money ex contractu, or from or out of the contract . . . .”). 17
    17
    Pitts held that former Code §§ 55-20 and -21 “were intended to apply to joint tenancies
    and to tenancies by the entireties created by an ‘instrument’ of conveyance or devise” and not by
    promissory notes, which are mere “memorials of a chose in action,” and consequently, “[t]he fact
    that those notes and the deed of trust securing the debt they represent contain no language
    evincing a survivorship intent is wholly immaterial to the question before us.” 
    Pitts, 242 Va. at 260
    . In 2001, however, the General Assembly amended former Code § 55-21, clarifying that the
    statute applied to “the instrument transferring such property or memorializing the existence of a
    chose in action.” Code § 55-21 (2001); see J. Rodney Johnson, Wills, Trusts, & Estates, 35 U.
    Rich. L. Rev. 845, 850-51 & n.26 (2001). The General Assembly similarly clarified former
    20
    C.
    In this case, Terry and Cathy Phillips argue that the insurance policy confirms that they
    collectively owned a contractual right to the insurance payments as tenants by the entirety with
    the common-law right of survivorship. We disagree.
    1.
    In Virginia, the “‘named insured’ is the policyholder. An ‘insured’ is simply a party who
    may be covered under the policy. Not all ‘insureds’ are ‘named insureds.’” Atkinson v. Penske
    Logistics, LLC, 
    268 Va. 129
    , 135 (2004); see also 7A Steven Plitt et al., Couch on Insurance 3d
    § 110:1, at 110-5 (2013 rev. ed.). We do not accept the simplistic assertion that “the term
    ‘named insured’ [should] be read as though the word ‘named’ is simply an adjective modifying
    the noun ‘insured.’” 
    Atkinson, 268 Va. at 135
    . In property- and casualty-insurance policies, only
    the “present named insured” is the legally recognized “[p]olicyholder.” See Code § 38.2-602.
    Terry Phillips was the sole policyholder on the Chubb policy and the only named insured.
    On 21 separate occasions, the insurance policy and riders specifically identified him alone as the
    named insured. See J.A. at 20-23, 26-28, 31-39, 91-95. The policy and riders nowhere
    mentioned Cathy Phillips by name. 18 Cathy Phillips merely appeared, at best, to be an unnamed
    insured “spouse” included in the definition of “[y]ou” in the general provisions of the policy.
    See
    id. at
    40. While this provision no doubt gave Cathy Phillips a contractual interest in the
    insurance payments, we are skeptical of her claim that this provision, standing alone, created the
    Code § 55-20.1, current Code § 55.1-135, by adding the language “written memorial of a chose
    in action.” See 
    Johnson, supra, at 850-51
    & n.26 (2001). That language has survived in the
    2019 recodifications of Code §§ 55.1-134 and -135.
    18
    This fact implicates a question that we need not resolve in this case: Can an instrument
    create a tenancy by the entirety while wholly omitting the name of one of the spouses? See, e.g.,
    W.W. Allen, Annotation, Estates by Entirety in Personal Property, 
    64 A.L.R. 2d 8
    , § 27 (1959)
    (discussing whether personal property held in one name only is sufficient to create a tenancy by
    the entirety).
    21
    requisite common-law unities to form a tenancy by the entirety, which involves taking “one and
    the same interest or estate, arising by one and the same conveyance, commencing at one and the
    same time, and held by one and the same undivided possession.” 1 Minor & Ribble, supra,
    § 839, at 1086 (defining the four unities); see 41 C.J.S. Husband and Wife § 22 (2020) (stating
    that tenants by the entirety take “identical interests simultaneously by the same instrument and
    with the same right of possession”).
    We need not answer that difficult and nuanced question, however, because a more
    fundamental flaw defeats the tenancy by the entirety claimed in this case. A tenancy by the
    entirety cannot exist unless the parties manifest some intent to create it. Disputing this premise,
    Terry and Cathy Phillips argue that Oliver and Pitts stand for the proposition that a manifestation
    of intent is not required for personal property to be held as a tenancy by the entirety. We
    disagree. Oliver and Pitts addressed the sale of real property held as a tenancy by the entirety.
    We merely held that the proceeds from the sale of that property retain the preexisting tenancy-
    by-the-entirety status of the property sold. See 
    Pitts, 242 Va. at 261-62
    ; 
    Oliver, 204 Va. at 126
    -
    27. It did not matter to us in Pitts that the buyer’s promissory notes “contain[ed] no language
    indicating a right of survivorship.” 
    Pitts, 242 Va. at 256
    . The title to the property clearly did —
    it had been conveyed to George and Ellen Pitts “as tenants by the entirety with the right of
    survivorship as at common law.”
    Id. at 257
    (citation omitted). We have never held that right-of-
    survivorship or tenancy-by-the-entirety language is unnecessary for personal property generally.
    To be sure, doing so would violate the admonition in Pitts to “leave the choice between
    competing public-policy interests to the General Assembly,”
    id. at
    262.
    22
    2.
    Terry and Cathy Phillips contend that even if some manifestation of intent is required, the
    Chubb insurance policy created a tenancy by the entirety by expressly providing for the right of
    survivorship. We again disagree.
    The right of survivorship is not simply the right of a surviving joint tenant to retain his or
    her proportionate share after the death of the other tenant. That truism would be true of
    “survivorship” in a mere tenancy in common. The “right of survivorship” of a tenancy by the
    entirety means that “[u]pon the death of either spouse the whole of the estate by the entireties
    remains in the survivor.” 
    Vasilion, 192 Va. at 740
    ; see supra at 18-19. “This is so not because
    he or she is vested with any new interest therein, but because in the first instance he or she took
    the entirety which, under the common law, was to remain in the survivor.” 
    Vasilion, 192 Va. at 740
    . This powerful attribute of a tenancy by the entirety means that upon the death of one
    spouse, the other spouse receives everything. See Guare, supra, § 3.204, at 144; Melnick, supra,
    § 8.203, at 1068. The decedent’s estate, his heirs, his children, his creditors — they receive
    nothing because property held in a tenancy by the entirety is a non-probate asset. See 2 Frank O.
    Brown, Virginia Practice Series: Probate Handbook §§ 1.1, 3.5, at 7, 96 (2019-2020 ed.); Rogers,
    supra, § 10.402, at 835. “[T]he surviving spouse owns all of the property by operation of law
    and nothing passes to the deceased spouse’s heirs, distributees, or beneficiaries.” Guare, supra,
    § 3.204, at 144.
    No provision in the Chubb insurance policy used the expression “tenants by the
    entireties” or “tenants by the entirety,” Code § 55.1-136(A); see Code § 55.1-135. Nor did any
    provision state that Terry and Cathy Phillips hold whatever interest they may have with the
    “right of survivorship” as at common law. See Code § 55.1-135. In other words, no provision of
    this policy can be construed to say that upon the death of the policyholder, the entire insurance
    23
    payout would go not to the decedent’s estate but solely to his spouse, a mere additional insured.
    The policy implied just the opposite. It stated:
    In the event of your death, we cover your spouse, your legal
    representative or any person having proper temporary custody of
    your property until a legal representative is appointed and
    qualified, but only with respect to your premises and other
    property covered under the policy at the time of death. We will
    also cover any member of your household who is a covered person
    at the time of death.
    J.A. at 83.
    This event-of-death provision said nothing more than the insurer’s contractual coverage
    obligations survive the death of one of the contracting parties. It “is a standard clause in many, if
    not most, contractual instruments used in a host of transactions.” See Wood v. Martin, 299 Va.
    ___, ___, Record No. 190738, slip op. at 12 (October 22, 2020). In this context, it simply meant
    that the insurer’s contractual duties will continue to inure to the benefit of (i) the decedent’s
    “spouse,” and (ii) any “legal representative . . . appointed and qualified” to represent his estate,
    and (iii) any other “covered person” under the policy. See J.A. at 83.
    A true right-of-survivorship provision would not (and could not) have said any of this. It
    would have said either, “upon your death, any payments under this policy shall be paid
    exclusively to your spouse and to no one else,” or “all contractual rights and proceeds belonging
    to you under this policy, upon your death, shall belong exclusively to your spouse.” Only then
    would “the whole of the estate,” 
    Vasilion, 192 Va. at 740
    , go exclusively to Cathy Phillips upon
    the death of Terry Phillips. In short, saying to the named insured, “we cover your spouse if you
    die” is not the same thing as saying “your spouse (and no one else) receives your rights under the
    contract upon your death.” The Chubb policy contains no language describing a common-law
    right of survivorship.
    24
    The event-of-death provision, moreover, appeared in the “General Provisions” section of
    the policy, J.A. at 83, and governed all aspects of the policy’s coverage. It provided contractual
    rights to all “covered person[s],”
    id., under the policy
    — which included persons other than
    Terry and Cathy Phillips. The policy’s “Personal Liability Coverage,” for example, protected the
    named insured, as well as any “family member,” any permitted users of vehicles or watercraft,
    and “any person or organization with respect to their legal responsibility for covered acts or
    omissions” of the named insured or a “family member.”
    Id. at 70.
    These other “covered”
    persons shared in the non-exclusive contractual rights owed by the insurer separately to all
    insureds, not just Terry and Cathy Phillips. Nothing in the Chubb insurance policy, therefore,
    attempted to satisfy the common-law unities sufficient to silo within it a tenancy by the entirety
    for Terry and Cathy Phillips.
    IV.
    In sum, the circuit court erred in dismissing the garnishment under Code § 55.1-136(C).
    A disposition involves an “act of transferring something to another’s care or possession” or “the
    relinquishing of property,” Black’s Law Dictionary 592 (11th ed. 2019) (emphasis added). The
    property in this case was not transferred to the insurer or to anyone else. There being no
    disposition of the property, Code § 55.1-136(C)’s statutory immunity does not apply. We also
    reject the alternative argument raised by Terry and Cathy Phillips that they held the contractual
    right to the insurance payments as tenants by the entirety. Even if they did have the requisite
    common-law unities (a question that we do not resolve), the insurance policy nowhere created a
    contractual right held by them with the common-law right of survivorship, an essential attribute
    of a tenancy by the entirety. For these reasons, we reverse the judgment dismissing the
    garnishment action and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
    Reversed and remanded.
    25
    JUSTICE GOODWYN, with whom JUSTICE MIMS and JUSTICE POWELL join, dissenting.
    My colleagues in the majority hold that insurance payments, owed to a husband and wife
    because of the fire loss of property entitled to immunity under Code § 55.1-136(C) 1, are not
    exempt from garnishment by a separate creditor of one of the spouses. I respectfully disagree.
    I.
    Terry Marshall Phillips (Mr. Phillips) and his wife, Cathy Sue Phillips (Mrs. Phillips),
    originally owned their home and its contents (the Residence) as tenants by the entireties. In
    2010, they retitled the Residence to their trusts, the Terry Marshall Phillips Revocable Trust and
    the Cathy Sue Phillips Revocable Trust. Code § 55.1-136(C) gives such trust property the same
    immunity from the claims of the spouses’ separate creditors as the property would have had if it
    continued to be held as tenants by the entireties.
    The Residence was covered by a homeowners insurance policy (the policy) issued by
    Chubb. The policy states that “[t]his policy is a contract between you and us.” The policy
    defines “you” as “the person named in the [c]overage [s]ummary, and a spouse who lives with
    that person.” Mr. Phillips is the person named in the policy’s coverage summary. It is
    undisputed that at all times relevant to this case, Mrs. Phillips was Mr. Phillips’ spouse and she
    lived with Mr. Phillips. Thus, “you” is Mr. and Mrs. Phillips. The policy defines “us” as Chubb.
    The policy requires Chubb to pay Mr. and Mrs. Phillips in the event of physical loss of the
    Residence. In February 2018, the Residence was lost to fire, and a claim was filed with Chubb.
    1
    In October 2019, Code § 55-20.2 was amended and reenacted as Code § 55.1-136,
    which contains near-identical language as the former Code § 55-20.2. 2019 Acts ch. 712. To be
    consistent with the majority, we will also refer to the current statute.
    26
    Chubb proceeded to pay Mr. and Mrs. Phillips for the damage, destruction, and loss of
    their property. It sent two checks as partial payment of the Phillipses’ claim. The checks were
    made payable to Mr. Phillips and Mrs. Phillips.2 Chubb made additional payments on the claim
    by wiring the payments to an account that Mr. and Mrs. Phillips owned as tenants by the
    entireties. Additional amounts were owed on the claim when, on March 2, 2018, Andrea Gail
    Jones (Ms. Jones), who has a judgment against Mr. Phillips, but not Mrs. Phillips, instituted a
    garnishment action in the Circuit Court of Powhatan County, seeking to garnish any subsequent
    homeowners insurance proceeds Chubb owes to Mr. Phillips.3
    Mr. Phillips and Mrs. Phillips each filed motions to quash and dismiss the garnishment.
    They argued that the homeowners insurance payments were exempt from garnishment because
    Ms. Jones’ judgment lien could not attach to the Residence, and it should follow that it cannot
    attach to any proceeds resulting from the damage, destruction, or loss of the Residence, pursuant
    to Code § 55.1-136(C). The Phillipses also argued that, regardless of the applicability of Code
    § 55.1-136(C), the proceeds from the policy are personal property owned by them as tenants by
    the entireties, and as such, are exempt from Ms. Jones’ garnishment for a debt owed solely by
    Mr. Phillips.
    The circuit court entered an order granting the Phillipses’ motions to quash, ruling that
    the insurance payments were proceeds of a disposition and thus exempted from garnishment
    under Code § 55.1-136(C). It noted that its ruling was consistent with that of other jurisdictions
    that had examined the issue, stating that “cases in other jurisdictions have held that insurance
    2
    The checks also listed Goodman-Gable Gould Adjusters International as a payee. The
    Phillipses hired these adjusters to assist them with filing their insurance claim.
    3
    In 2013, Ms. Jones prevailed in an unlawful termination claim. As part of that
    litigation, a federal district court entered a judgment award against Mr. Phillips, who had served
    as chairman and majority shareholder of a corporation that formerly employed Ms. Jones.
    27
    proceeds that derive from property that was held as tenants by the entirety are likewise deemed
    to be owned as tenants by the entirety.” See J.A. at 324 (citing Cooper v. Cooper, 
    284 S.W.2d 617
    (Ark. 1955)).
    This appeal followed.
    II.
    The issue of whether the circuit court erred in its application of Code § 55.1-136(C) is a
    question of statutory interpretation, which is a pure question of law that we review de novo. JSR
    Mech., Inc. v. Aireco Supply, Inc., 
    291 Va. 377
    , 383 (2016). Although the satisfaction of the
    other requirements of Code § 55.1-136(C) is not disputed, the parties disagree as to whether the
    insurance payments from Chubb are the “proceeds of [a] sale or disposition.” Code
    § 55.1-136(C) states, in relevant part:
    [A]ny property of spouses that is held by them as tenants by the entirety and
    conveyed to their joint revocable or irrevocable trusts, or to their separate
    revocable or irrevocable trusts, and any proceeds of the sale or disposition of such
    property, shall have the same immunity from the claims of their separate creditors
    as it would if it had remained a tenancy by the entirety, so long as (i) they remain
    married to each other, (ii) it continues to be held in the trust or trusts, and (iii) it
    continues to be their property, including where both spouses are current
    beneficiaries of one trust that holds the entire property or each spouse is a current
    beneficiary of a separate trust and the two separate trusts together hold the entire
    property, whether or not other persons are also current or future beneficiaries of
    the trust or trusts.
    The majority concludes that the homeowners insurance payments were not the proceeds
    of a disposition because a disposition of property requires the act of transferring property. See
    ante at 5-6. I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that property can only be disposed of by
    transferring its ownership or possession.
    Quoting an aphorism attributed to Albert Einstein, our Court has previously stated
    “everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Levick v. MacDougall, 
    294 Va. 283
    , 291 (2017). In reaching its conclusion regarding the plain meaning of “disposition,” as
    28
    the word is used in Code § 55.1-136(C), the majority fails to consider all of the definitions for
    disposition in Black’s Law Dictionary, and it also fails to consider meanings of the word not
    found in the “vocabulary of law.” Unfortunately, the problematic result of this shortcoming is
    further compounded because consideration of the varying definitions of the word “disposition”
    leads to an understanding of the term’s ambiguity, which needs to be addressed in interpreting its
    meaning in the context of Code § 55.1-136(C).
    The majority appears to resolve this case on the basis of a Black’s Law Dictionary
    definition of disposition that was not argued before the circuit court or this Court, and to reverse
    the circuit court based upon an argument that the circuit court did not have the opportunity to
    consider. The parties and the circuit court failed to discern any jurisprudential rationale for
    choosing the particular sub-definition from Black’s Law Dictionary found by the majority to be
    definitive. Perhaps it is because the circuit court and the parties considered other sources in
    addition to Black’s Law Dictionary in their attempts to interpret the meaning of the statutory
    language, but no party to this action has asserted that the resolution of the issue of the meaning
    of disposition as used in Code § 55.1-136(C) was as simple as deferring to a particular Black’s
    Law Dictionary definition– not Ms. Jones, not the Phillipses, and not the circuit court. In fact,
    the Black’s Law Dictionary definition of disposition is not mentioned at all in any briefing or
    arguments before the circuit court or this Court.
    Regarding Ms. Jones’ argument concerning why the insurance proceeds are not a
    disposition under Code § 55.1-136(C), I believe it is best to directly quote from her brief:
    The trial court’s holding that the proceeds of the Policy was a disposition
    under [the statute] is incorrect. First, such a finding contradicts the statement of
    [the] Pitts Court, which explicitly chose not to extend [tenancy by the entirety]
    protections to proceeds from a homeowner’s insurance policy. Second, since the
    holding in Pitts, the Legislature has taken no affirmative action to extend
    protections to homeowner’s insurance contracts.
    29
    Still, if forced to categorize the payment of proceeds from an insurance
    contract under the current framework, the proceeds are at most a partial
    disposition of the underlying property. As is the case here, the owners of the real
    property retain it, even when catastrophe strikes.
    As stated above, the Legislature adopted the rule from Oliver extending
    the protection to proceeds from the voluntary sale or disposition. No disposition
    occurred in the instant case; the Phillips[es] retain all the sticks in the Property’s
    bundle. They retain ownership of the Property, remain seized of the land, and
    retain the requisite unities, continuing to own the Property as tenants by the
    entireties. The Property has been neither sold, nor devised, nor given away.
    Given the long history of [tenancy by the entirety], “sale or disposition” could be
    interpreted to apply only to the sale, gift, or devise of the property by the spouses.
    It logically follows that personalty protection could extend to those
    situations in which the entire bundle of sticks was exchanged. It also follows
    logically that an owner may sell their land and that an author needs a legal-catch-
    all phrase for which “disposition” covers the gamut. Still, [the statute] speaks
    only to the total disposition of the marital asset, which the receipt of proceeds
    from an insurance contract are not.
    Brief for Appellant at 22-23.
    As noted by Ms. Jones, “sale or disposition” could be interpreted to apply only to the
    sale, gift, or devise of property. However, we must determine if it should be interpreted that
    way.
    In interpreting a statute, we “apply the plain language of a statute unless the terms are
    ambiguous or applying the plain language would lead to an absurd result.” Boynton v. Kilgore,
    
    271 Va. 220
    , 227 (2006) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). Statutory language is
    ambiguous if it is subject to more than one reasonable interpretation, “lacks clarity and
    precision,” or is “difficult to comprehend.” Herndon v. St. Mary’s Hosp. Inc., 
    266 Va. 472
    , 475
    (2003). We also presume that every part of a statute has “some effect and no part will be
    considered meaningless unless absolutely necessary.” City of Richmond v. Virginia Elec. &
    Power Co., 
    292 Va. 70
    , 75 (2016) (quoting Lynchburg Div. of Soc. Servs. v. Cook, 
    276 Va. 465
    ,
    483 (2008)).
    30
    Proceeds are defined as “what is produced by or derived from something (as a sale,
    investment, levy, business) by way of total revenue; the total amount brought in” or “the net sum
    received (as for a check, a negotiable note, an insurance policy) after deduction of any discount
    or charges.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1807 (1993). It is “the value of land,
    goods or investments when converted into money.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1458 (11th ed.
    2019). It is undisputed that the insurance payments are not proceeds of a sale; at issue in this
    case is whether the insurance payments are the proceeds of a disposition.
    The majority uses what it terms as a “vocabulary of law” definition of disposition as the
    word’s plain meaning in the statute. See ante at 4-5. It indicates that disposition is required to
    be interpreted according to one of its definitions in Black’s Law Dictionary, and only considers
    definitions from that source. There is no Virginia authority that supports doing so.
    In Black’s Law Dictionary, disposition is defined as:
    1. The act of transferring something to another’s care or possession, esp[ecially]
    by deed or will; the relinquishing of property.
    2. A final settlement or determination.
    3. Temperament or character; personal makeup.
    Black’s Law Dictionary 592 (11th ed. 2019). The majority examines the definitions from
    Black’s Law Dictionary and correctly determines that the Residence, which was destroyed by
    fire, did not have a person’s “temperament or character,” so the third definition was inapplicable
    in this instance. See ante at 5-6. I agree. However, it did not cite or consider the second
    definition of disposition, which may have some bearing on the meaning of disposition as used in
    the relevant statute. Instead, the majority concludes that, in the “vocabulary of law,” disposition
    as used in Code § 55.1-136(C) should be defined, essentially, as it is described in the first
    definition in the most current edition of Black’s Law Dictionary, as “[t]he act of transferring
    something to another’s care or possession [especially by deed or will]” or “the relinquishing of
    31
    property.” See ante at 4-5 (citing Black’s Law Dictionary 592 (11th ed. 2019), adding emphasis
    on transferring). Putting aside the majority’s failure to consider the second definition of
    disposition in Black’s Law Dictionary and its unexplained emphasis on the word “transferring”
    in reaching its conclusion concerning the meaning of disposition as used in Code § 55.1-136(C),
    the majority’s analysis also suffers from the fact that Black’s Law Dictionary is but one source to
    consider in attempting to determine the meaning of statutory language used by the General
    Assembly, and needless to say, the law dictionary is not always the best source for determining
    plain meaning.
    Consideration of the definition of a word as found in a common usage dictionary is often
    a worthwhile endeavor in the search for the word’s plain meaning. In such a dictionary,
    disposition is defined as: “the act or the power of disposing or disposing of or the state of being
    disposed or disposed of; as a: administration, control, management; b: a placing elsewhere, a
    giving over to the care and possession of another or the relinquishing” and “c: an ordering or
    arranging or a state of being ordered or arranged usu[ally] systematically or in an orderly way
    and esp[ecially] as part of a whole.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 654 (1993).
    The majority properly acknowledges that in the past, disposition has also been defined as
    the “[a]ct of disposing; transferring to the care or possession of another” or “[t]he parting with,
    alienation of, or giving up of property.” See ante at 5 (citing Black’s Law Dictionary 471 (6th
    ed. 1990), adding emphasis to transferring). It is also worth considering that in an even earlier
    edition of Black’s Law Dictionary, disposition was also defined as “[a] destruction of property.”
    Black’s Law Dictionary 558 (4th ed. 1957) (citations omitted).
    Given the broadly varying definitions of “disposition,” which are discerned upon
    considering various sources and definitions, as did the parties and the circuit court, I believe that
    the meaning of disposition as used in Code § 55.1-136(C) is ambiguous. As there is no
    32
    precedent for the adoption of a “vocabulary of law” definition, which is but one of several
    meanings which could be ascribed to the word “disposition,” I disagree with the majority’s
    conclusion that a disposition of property cannot occur without the property being transferred.
    When we find a term to be ambiguous, we resort to rules of statutory construction, which
    can include an analysis of legislative and jurisprudential history. See Virginia-American Water
    Co. v. Prince William Cty. Serv. Auth., 
    246 Va. 509
    , 514 (1993); see also Newberry Station
    Homeowners Ass’n v. Board of Supervisors, 
    285 Va. 604
    , 614 (2013) (“When the language of an
    enactment is free from ambiguity, resort to legislative history and extrinsic facts is not
    permitted.”). Ultimately, “we must apply the interpretation that will carry out the legislative
    intent behind the statute.” Conyers v. Martial Arts World of Richmond, Inc., 
    273 Va. 96
    , 104
    (2007).
    In her brief, Ms. Jones implicitly asserts that the meaning of disposition as used in Code
    § 55.1-136(C) is ambiguous. As noted above, in her attempt to discern the meaning of
    disposition as used in the statute, Ms. Jones looks to the historical development of the tenancy by
    the entirety doctrine in Virginia, and concludes that “sale and disposition” as used in Code
    § 55.1-136(C) “could be interpreted” to apply only to the total voluntary disposition of marital
    assets through the sale, gift, or devise of property by the spouses. She asserts that the use of the
    word is limited to the total disposition of marital assets because of related tenants by the
    entireties precedent, specifically Oliver v. Givens, 
    204 Va. 123
    (1963) and Pitts v. United States,
    
    242 Va. 254
    (1991).
    Ms. Jones notes that Oliver, in which this Court first recognized that personal property
    could be held as tenants by the entireties, and Pitts, which followed the ruling in Oliver, both
    involved a voluntary, complete exchange of the real property for personalty. In both cases, our
    Court ruled that the proceeds from the voluntary sale of property owned by spouses as tenants by
    33
    the entireties are likewise owned and held by them as tenants by the entireties. See 
    Oliver, 204 Va. at 126
    -27; 
    Pitts, 242 Va. at 262
    . Ms. Jones claims that when the General Assembly acts, it
    must be presumed to do so with the full knowledge of this Court’s previous decisions, and that
    the General Assembly’s decision not to include the word “partial” or another modifier before
    disposition in Code § 55.1-136(C) means that disposition is limited to voluntary and complete
    dispositions because the voluntary sales of real estate approved by this Court in Pitts and Oliver,
    as producing personal property proceeds held as tenants by the entireties, were voluntary and
    complete dispositions.
    According to Ms. Jones, in this case, no disposition occurred as the term is used in Code
    § 55.1-136 because the admittedly catastrophic fire was presumably not voluntary, and the
    conceded resulting disposition of the property by fire was only partial, because the Phillipses
    retained some rights in the Residence after the fire. Ms. Jones avers that because the disposition
    of the Residence was not voluntary or complete, the circuit court erred in ruling that the
    insurance payments were the proceeds of a disposition and that Code § 55.1-136(C) exempted
    the proceeds from garnishment. I disagree.
    As noted by the majority, tenancy by the entirety is one of the co-tenancies that existed at
    common-law that has survived to modern times. 48A C.J.S. Joint Tenancy § 1 (March 2020
    update). Because a tenancy by the entirety is “[b]ased on the [common-law] fiction of the unity
    of husband and wife,” property owned by this tenancy is “immune from the claims of creditors
    against either husband or wife alone.” Vasilion v. Vasilion, 
    192 Va. 735
    , 740, 742 (1951).
    Historically, this tenancy, and therefore the protection from separate creditors, only
    applied to real property. See 2 Raleigh C. Minor, The Law of Real Property §§ 837, 852
    (Frederick D.G. Ribble ed. 1928) (explaining that an estate in joint tenancy exists in land or
    tenements and stating that a tenancy by the entirety is governed by nearly identical principles as
    34
    joint tenancies); see also 
    Vasilion, 192 Va. at 740
    (discussing how the right of a creditor to attach
    land is of no use where the realty is subject to a tenancy by the entirety). However, decisions of
    this Court and acts by the General Assembly have expanded the application of this form of
    tenancy to include personal property as well.
    In Oliver we determined, as an issue of first impression, that Virginia law allows personal
    property, not just real property, to be held by the 
    entirety. 204 Va. at 126
    . We then stated that
    “[i]n those jurisdictions which recognize a tenancy by the entirety in personal property it is
    almost universally held that, in the absence of an agreement or understanding to the contrary, the
    proceeds derived from a voluntary sale of real estate held by the entireties are likewise held by
    the entireties.”
    Id. at 126-27.
    The Court then ruled in accordance with those referenced cases
    from other jurisdictions and held, as a matter of first impression in Virginia, that the personal
    property proceeds, from the voluntary sale of real property held as tenants by the entireties, are
    also held as tenants by the entireties, absent an agreement or understanding otherwise.
    Id. at 127.
    Later, in Pitts, we were asked to determine whether our holding in Oliver applied to
    another type of personal property, payments received on promissory notes exchanged as part of a
    voluntary sale of real estate that was held by the 
    entirety. 242 Va. at 256-57
    . We reiterated the
    rule adopted in Oliver, and ruled that the promissory notes were proceeds of the voluntary sale of
    the real estate held by the entirety, and as such, pursuant to our decision in Oliver, the notes and
    the payments on the notes were personal property proceeds held by the entirety.
    Id. at 261-62.
    Although the Court acknowledged that other jurisdictions, which recognized that personalty
    could be owned as tenants by the entireties, had extended the Oliver rule to proceeds from other
    types of disposals and conversions of property, including “payments of insurance claims and
    judgments resulting from injury to realty,” the Court declined to extend the rule beyond the facts
    35
    articulated in Oliver. 
    Pitts, 242 Va. at 262
    . We stated “[w]e leave the choice [of further
    extending the entireties doctrine to other types of proceeds] to the General Assembly.”
    Id. Perhaps accepting this
    Court’s invitation to do so, the General Assembly has clearly acted
    to extend the benefits of the entireties doctrine. The General Assembly has specifically provided
    that “[p]ersonal property may be owned as tenants by the entirety, whether or not the personal
    property represents the proceeds of the sale of real property.” Code § 55-20.2(B) (2001). Thus,
    it eliminated the assertion that personal property must be the proceeds of a transfer of real
    property in order to be owned as tenants by the entireties. The General Assembly also expanded
    the instances in which certain real and personal property, originally held by a husband and wife
    as tenants by the entireties, would retain the same immunity from the claims of separate creditors
    as if it continued to be held by tenancy by the entirety, although it was no longer held as such.
    Id. Specifically, the General
    Assembly provided that
    [t]he principal family residence of a husband and wife that [was] held by
    them as tenants by the entireties and conveyed to their joint revocable or
    irrevocable trust, or in equal shares to their separate revocable or
    irrevocable trusts, shall have the same immunity from the claims of their
    separate creditors as it would if it had remained a tenancy by the entirety,
    so long as (i) they remain husband and wife, (ii) it continues to be held in
    the trust or trusts, and (iii) it continues to be their principal family
    residence.
    Id. (emphasis added). In
    2006, the General Assembly amended that statute to extend the protection afforded by
    Code § 55-20.2(B) to any property formerly owned by a husband and wife as tenants by the
    entireties, instead of just to property that continued to be their principal family residence. Code
    § 55-20.2(B) (2006).
    In 2015, the General Assembly amended Code § 55-20.2(B) again, expanding its
    application further by adding the language that is at issue in this case. See Code § 55-20.2(B)
    36
    (2015). 4 The amendment provided that not only is property held in the trust protected from the
    claims of separate creditors as it would have been if it had remained a tenancy by the entirety,
    but “any proceeds of the sale or disposition of such property” are also entitled to the same
    protection.
    Id. The General Assembly,
    through this amendment, expressly expanded the type of
    proceeds that are afforded the same protection from creditors as the property from which it is
    derived, beyond the parameters of the rule this Court recognized in Oliver and Pitts, which
    restricted such protection to the proceeds derived from the voluntary sale of real estate.
    In Pitts, we stated
    We are aware that, in several jurisdictions which recognize that personalty
    can be owned as a tenancy by the entirety, the rule that we applied to the
    proceeds of voluntary sales of realty owned by the entireties in Oliver has
    been extended to the proceeds of other kinds of disposal or conversion of
    real estate. For example, some courts have applied the rule to the
    proceeds of judicial sales, condemnations, and mortgages; to the surplus
    remaining after foreclosure; to payments of insurance claims and damage
    judgments resulting from injury to realty; and to the derivatives of
    proceeds of voluntary sales.
    
    Pitts, 242 Va. at 262
    (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). We stated that we left the
    choice to the General Assembly to extend the rule articulated in Oliver and Pitts.
    Id. Through Code §
    55.1-136(C), 5 the General Assembly expressly extends the rule stated in
    Oliver to “any proceeds of the sale or disposition of such property.” Note that in Code
    § 55.1-136(C), unlike in the rule expressed in Oliver, the proceeds immunized from the claims of
    separate creditors of the spouses are not limited to the proceeds which are derived from the
    voluntary sale of real property. The immunity applies to all proceeds, including those from
    4
    In 2017, the General Assembly amended the statute to its most recent form before its
    2019 amendment and reenactment as Code § 55.1-136, inserting a new subsection (B) and
    moving the existing subsection (B) to subsection (C). Code § 55-20.2 (2017).
    5
    See supra note 4.
    37
    personal property, as well as real property and it includes proceeds from involuntary sales as well
    as voluntary sales; it also applies to proceeds from any other type of disposition of real or
    personal property.
    As noted by the circuit court, and alluded to in dicta by our Court in Pitts, other
    jurisdictions which recognize that personal property may be owned by tenants by the entireties,
    have afforded tenants by the entireties protection to insurance proceeds paid to replace or repair
    such property, absent an agreement otherwise. See Cooper v. Cooper, 
    284 S.W.2d 617
    , 620
    (Ark. 1955); Regnante v. Baldassare, 
    448 N.E.2d 775
    , 777-78 (Mass. App. Ct. 1983); Gaunt v.
    Shelter Mut. Ins., 
    808 S.W.2d 401
    , 404-05 (Mo. Ct. App. 1991); cf. McDivitt v. Pymatuning Mut.
    Fire Ins., 
    449 A.2d 612
    , 615-16 (Pa. Super. 1982) (finding based on the facts of the case that
    there was an agreement otherwise).
    “We presume that when the General Assembly enacts legislation, it is aware of this
    Court’s precedents.” Lambert v. Sea Oats Condo. Ass’n, 
    293 Va. 245
    , 254 (2017); Philip Morris
    USA Inc. v. Chesapeake Bay Found., Inc., 
    273 Va. 564
    , 576 (2007). Further, we presume “that
    the legislature has purposefully chosen the precise statutory language, ‘and we are bound by
    those words when we apply the statute.’” David v. David, 
    287 Va. 231
    , 240 (2014) (quoting
    Halifax Corp. v. First Union Nat’l Bank, 
    262 Va. 91
    , 100 (2001)).
    The General Assembly’s choice of the word “disposition” as used in Code § 55.1-136(C),
    to extend the application of tenants by the entireties protection against creditors to additional
    types of proceeds from property owned by spouses, was purposeful, deliberate, and with
    knowledge of our previous decisions in this area of the law, and the various meanings of the
    word. Disposition was used in addition to the word “sale.” Recognizing that the meaning of
    disposition as used in the statute should not be duplicative of the term “sale,” which in the statute
    is not limited to voluntary sales, indicates that disposition has to mean something other than the
    38
    transfer of property for a price. Disposition’s meaning may include a gift of property, as
    mentioned by Ms. Jones, but that is not relevant to the analysis of the present statute because that
    type of disposition would not provide proceeds. Disposition as used in Code § 55.1-136(C) must
    have been intended to have a broader meaning than that articulated by the majority or Ms. Jones.
    Disposition is a broad term, and it is used in the statute without qualification. Review of
    the language in Code § 55.1-136, this Court’s relevant precedent, and the numerous legislative
    amendments and enactments passed by the General Assembly on these topics, leads to the
    conclusion that the meaning of disposition as used in Code § 55.1-136(C) is purposefully broad
    and the word is intended to be interpreted as having a broad meaning, the act or power of
    disposing; a disposition concerns the disposal of property. See Black’s Law Dictionary 592
    (11th ed. 2019); Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 654 (1993). It can concern a
    final settlement or determination regarding property rights. See Black’s Law Dictionary 592
    (11th ed. 2019). It can mean to treat or to handle something with the result of finishing with it.
    See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 654 (1993). It can be a transfer or loss of
    property. In other words, a disposition may take many different forms as it relates to the
    property rights to realty and to personalty; it is a catch-all phrase which covers the gamut.
    Property can be disposed of without it being transferred, such as by being discarded or
    destroyed. See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 654 (1993). A disposal or
    conversion can be accomplished voluntarily, as through sale, gift, devise, or abandonment of
    property; but it can also be accomplished involuntarily through foreclosure, condemnation,
    destruction, or other means. A disposition can be of the full disposition of rights to property, but
    it can also be a partial disposition of property or property rights, as through granting a lease on
    the property or an easement, or by conversion, partition, damages, or other means of partial loss
    39
    or relinquishment of property or its value. Code § 55.1-136(C) does not limit the type of
    disposition considered for purposes of the statute.
    Through the use of the term “disposition,” Code § 55.1-136(C) protects proceeds derived
    from the disposal of property against the claims of the spouses’ separate creditors, no matter the
    manner in which such disposal results in proceeds that replace the property or value of the
    property which was entitled to immunity from creditors. Just as creditors are not prejudiced by a
    gift of property that is exempt from their claim, there is no prejudice to creditors in allowing
    proceeds that replace property or loss in value of property that was immune from the claims of a
    spouse’s separate creditors to be immune also. See 
    Oliver, 204 Va. at 127
    (citing 
    Vasilion, 192 Va. at 740
    ; 1 Garrard Glenn, Fraudulent Conveyances § 172, at 313 (2d ed. 1931); 24 Am. Jur.,
    Fraudulent Conveyances, § 109 (1983); 37 C.J.S., Fraudulent Conveyances, §§ 29-a, 30).
    There are no indicia that the General Assembly intended to limit the meaning of
    disposition to instances in which property rights are transferred, as the majority has ruled.
    Nothing in our prior cases or the language of the relevant statute supports limiting the meaning
    of disposition to the particular Black’s Law Dictionary definition that the majority has concluded
    is the proper interpretation of the word. The majority has adopted an overly restrictive definition
    of the word “disposition.” See, e.g., Brown v. Commonwealth, 
    284 Va. 538
    , 542 (2012)
    (observing that the Court “will not apply an unreasonably restrictive interpretation of [a] statute”
    and that “[t]he plain, obvious, and rational meaning of a statute is to be preferred over any
    curious, narrow, or strained construction” thereof) (citations and internal quotation marks
    omitted).
    The majority’s particularized “vocabulary of law” definition of disposition conflicts with
    the obligation to give the language of the statute its plain meaning, and it is also contrary to the
    apparent intent of the General Assembly. It is clear from the legislative history of the statutes
    40
    discussed above that the General Assembly has purposefully decided to expand the protection
    provided to tenancies by the entireties properties to certain trust property, and to all dispositions
    of such properties which result in proceeds. The majority’s holding, which restricts the
    definition of dispositions to only those dispositions which concern transfers of property is at odds
    with that intent. The interpretation put forth by the majority allows a married couple protection
    from individual creditors for proceeds from the sale of property held by them under the
    provisions of Code § 55.1-136(C), but allows creditors to attach the proceeds paid to replace the
    property if compensation is paid because of the property’s loss by negligence, calamity, or any
    other manner which is not a transfer. I do not believe that was the intent of the General
    Assembly.
    According to the majority, the General Assembly by using the word “disposition,”
    intended to protect the proceeds from the transfer of property from a separate creditor, but allow
    that separate creditor to garnish proceeds paid to the spouses for loss of property in instances
    when the property is disposed of, but neither the ownership or the possession of the property is
    transferred. Under the majority’s view, if a married couple has a piece of expensive equipment,
    that they own as tenants by the entireties and place in a trust pursuant to Code § 55.1-136(C), and
    they subsequently sell that equipment to a neighbor, the proceeds of a sale would be protected
    from garnishment by a creditor of only one of the spouses, because there was a transfer of the
    property from the couple to the neighbor. However, if that same neighbor destroyed the couple’s
    equipment through an act of negligence, and was required to pay the couple for that property, the
    payments from the neighbor would be subject to a garnishment by a separate creditor of one of
    the spouses because there was no transfer of the property. The same is true when insurance
    payments are made to the spouses because of loss or damage to trust property subject to
    Code § 55.1-136(C). I do not believe that such disparate treatment is consistent with the intent
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    expressed by the General Assembly in extending the protections from separate creditors of the
    spouses to all proceeds from the dispositions of such property.
    Considering the statute and the context in which it is used, the meaning of disposition is
    broad and “proceeds of a disposition” includes proceeds of any type of disposition, including the
    proceeds from all of the examples of disposals and conversions mentioned by our Court in Pitts.
    One of those examples was “payments of insurance claims and damage judgments resulting from
    [damage to property].” See 
    Pitts, 242 Va. at 262
    (citing 
    22 A.L.R. 4th 459
    (1983)).
    The payments owed to Mr. and Mrs. Phillips by Chubb were the proceeds of a
    disposition. In this instance, the Residence was literally disposed of when it was consumed by
    fire; Mr. and Mrs. Phillips lost the Residence due to the fire; the Residence no longer exists.
    Because of a contract of insurance, Chubb was required to pay Mr. Phillips and Mrs. Phillips for
    the value of the property lost to the fire. The insurance payments by Chubb were contractually
    required proceeds paid because of the involuntary disposition of the Residence. The checks
    made in payment of the homeowners insurance claim were made payable to both Mr. Phillips
    and Mrs. Phillips and prior insurance payments were wired to an account held by them as tenants
    by the entireties.
    The circuit court did not err in holding that the insurance payments owed to the Phillipses
    were proceeds of a disposition of property they had previously owned as tenants by the entireties
    and that Code § 55.1-136(C) exempted those proceeds from Ms. Jones’ garnishment action.
    Therefore, I would affirm the circuit court’s judgment.
    Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
    42