On Appeal, Court Will Not Carve Out Appeal of Just Military Pension
Tennessee case summary on military retirement in divorce.
Theresa Aileen Blount v. Howard Paul Blount, III
The husband and wife in this Roane County, Tennessee, case were married in 1985. The husband was in the military and continued to serve until 1997. Shortly after he left the military, the wife filed for divorce. They agreed to many issues, such as a parenting plan, but they were unable to resolve the property issues, and the case was heard by a special master in 2004, and affirmed by the trial court in 2005.
In 2015, the wife filed a petition for payment of military benefits. The trial court, Judge Dennis W. Humphrey, granted the wife a marital share, and also awarded her $6,000 in attorney fees. Both parties appealed various issues to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
On appeal, the husband argued that the petition should have been dismissed, and that the lower court had erre4d in awarding a portion of the retirement benefits.
Unfortunately, the appellate court ruled that the husband’s appellate brief was lacking. The husband stated that the petition should have been dismissed due to being filed so many years after the original divorce decree. But the appellate court found that his brief did little more than recite his alleged “reasons,” rather than containing any kind of persuasive argument.
The husband’s argument on the award of military benefits was similarly lacking because the husband had failed to include a discussion of the other property awarded to the spouses. The appeals court noted that it would not look at the disposition of particular assets. Instead, the proper role of the court is to look at whether the overall property distribution was equitable. Since the husband didn’t discuss the overall distribution, the Court of Appeals held that it was improper to look at the disposition of one particular asset, namely, the military pension.
The wife also argued on appeal that the lower court should have used a different method of computing her marital share. However, the Court of Appeals held that it was not proper for it to impose any particular methodology.
The rest of the issues were remanded to the trial court to determine the appropriate valuation method for calculating Wife’s benefits and describe each party’s respective legal interest in Husband’s military pension.
For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling of the lower court.
No. E2017-00243-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 22, 2018).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Tennessee Divorce Law on Retirement.
