Resolution of Tennessee Divorce Pension Dispute Was Simple Reading
Tennessee law case summary on military pension law in divorce from the Court of Appeals.
Ok Nan Kim Lambert v. Mark Stephen Lambert – Tennessee divorce pension division
The husband and wife in this Tennessee divorce case had been married twice and divorced twice. At the time of the first divorce in 1999, the husband was on active military duty, and was not yet eligible to collect his military pension. Under the marital termination agreement in that divorce, the wife was awarded 50% of the military pension.
A year later the parties remarried, but divorced again in 2004. At the time of the 2004 divorce, the parties once again entered into a marital dissolution agreement, which awarded the wife 50% of the husband’s military retirement pay. They subsequently modified this agreement to address the documentation that the husband would deliver to the wife with respect to the military retirement.
In 2008, the husband retired from the Army with 27 years’ service. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (known as “DFAS”) advised him that the language in the decrees was imprecise, and that the wife’s request could not be processed. The wife responded by filing a contempt motion against the husband in Tennessee court. A special master was appointed, who concluded that the wife was entitled to 50% of that part of the pension that accrued during the marriage, using the duration of both marriages to compute the length of the marriage. The wife therefore received 20/27ths of half the husband’s pension. Arguing that this was an incorrect interpretation of the agreements, the husband appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
The appeals court first noted that since this case involved marital termination agreements, it was essentially a contract case, and the court’s duty was to interpret the contract between the parties. In this case, it began by examining the agreement incorporated into the second divorce decree. That contract stated that the wife was entitled to “a fifty percent share of husband’s military retired pay.” The appeals court concluded that this meant half of the pension, regardless of the length of the marriage. Therefore, it was not necessary to decide which duration of marriage should be used. Therefore, it held that the husband’s appeal did not result in any change in his favor, and affirmed the lower court’s ruling.
No. M2013-01885-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. July 18, 2014).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Dividing a Military Pension in Tennessee Divorce.
