Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

If you and your husband have formed a marital community (which you almost certainly have unless you have worked very hard to avoid it, preferably along with a written prenuptial agreement that says you will maintain separate finances), and if you are being sued over something that happened after you got married, then the community is on the hook.

If the two of you are financially separate and/or the lawsuit concerns events that predate the marriage, then only you are liable.

I agree with Mr. Hoffman. All of a debtor's separate property and the community property can be reached by a creditor, even if the debt was incrred before marriage. Your husband's separate property would not be liable.

Your husband can protect his earnings if they are held in a deposit account in which you have no right of withdrawal, and those earnings are not commingled with other community property.