Ex-Husband Denied Change to Divorce Based on Federal Pension Rules

Tennessee case summary on dividing federal pension in divorce.

Kathaleen Moriarty King v. Hal David King

The husband and wife in this Tennessee case were divorced in 1997, and the wife was awarded a percentage of the husband’s federal retirement.  Under their agreement, which was incorporated into the judgment, the wife was to receive half of the marital portion of the retirement, as accrued on the date of the divorce.  Nothing was said, however, with respect to cost-of-living or salary adjustments.  In 2008, the court entered an updated order, which specified the wife’s share, but did not mention salary adjustments.  It did state, however, that she was entitled to cost of living adjustments.  The husband retired in 2015, and in 2016, he made a motion for relief from the judgment, which the trial court granted.  The trial court added language that excluded post-divorce salary and cost of living adjustments.  The wife then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The trial court had added the language because it considered the lack of clarity in the earlier judgment to be a clerical mistake or error, and reasoned that the changes did not actually modify the intent of the original judgment.

On appeal, the wife argued that the original judgment had sufficient clarity, and pointed to federal regulations governing retirements, and pointed out that the original judgment could be easily applied to the judgment as it stood.  Under those federal regulations, the wife was entitled to cost of living adjustments unless the divorce decree stateed otherwise.

The appeals court agreed with the wife.  It noted that the federal regulations did not attempt to override the state court judgment.  Instead, it specified very specific rules of construction that should be applied.  The court noted that both parties were represented by attorneys at the time of their divorce agreement, and that the attorneys were presumably aware of the effect of the federal regulations.  The husband pointed to contrary rulings in other states, but the court was not persuaded by these decisions.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals vacated the lower court’s order and reinstated the original judgment.

No. E2016-01451-COA-R3-CV  (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 31, 2017).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Tennessee Divorce Law on Retirement.