Black v. Black

• Decision Date: 26 February 2004
• Citation: 842 A.2d 1280,2004 ME 21
• Parties: David BLACK v. Lorraine BLACK.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

842 A.2d 1280

2004 ME 21

David BLACK v. Lorraine BLACK.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued: April 8, 2003.

Decided: February 26, 2004.

Sally A. Williams, Esq. (orally), Biddeford, for plaintiff.

Kenneth P. Altshuler, Esq. (orally), Childs, Rundlett, Fifield, Shumway & Altshuler, LLC, Portland, for defendant.

Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and CLIFFORD, RUDMAN, DANA, ALEXANDER, CALKINS, and LEVY, JJ.

Majority: SAUFLEY, C.J., and RUDMAN, DANA, CALKINS, and LEVY, JJ.

Dissent: CLIFFORD and ALEXANDER, JJ.

LEVY, J.

[¶ 1] David Black and Lorraine Black were divorced in 1993 by a divorce judgment of the District Court (York, Gaulin, J.) that provided, among other things, that each would receive one-half of David's military retirement pay as a division of marital property. In 2000, David converted his military retirement pay to disability pay, resulting in the termination of Lorraine's receipt of her one-half share of the military retirement pay. Lorraine filed postjudgment motions to enforce and for relief from the divorce judgment. The District Court (Kennedy, J.) denied both motions, concluding that it was without authority to enforce the judgment because of prohibitions on the postjudgment modification of property distributions and waivers of spousal support, and that it was barred from granting relief from the judgment by the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act, 10 U.S.C. § 1408(a)(4)(B), (c)(1) (2000). Because we conclude that the court is authorized to award relief under these circumstances, we vacate the court's judgment.

I. PROCEDURAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

[¶ 2] The parties' 1993 divorce judgment included the following provision dividing David's military retirement pay:

15. The parties [sic] marital property consisting of the plaintiff's United States Air Force Retirement Pay shall be divided as follows: plaintiff and the defendant shall each receive $667.00 per month before taxes, which equals fifty per cent [50%] of the plaintiff's disposable retirement pay according to said SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT. The parties shall complete all necessary documentation to facilitate direct payment to each party from the United States Government.

The settlement agreement was incorporated into the divorce judgment and provided, in relevant part: (1) each party would receive his or her share "directly from the U.S. Air Force and each party will execute any and all documents necessary to facilitate this arrangement"; (2) Lorraine would not be entitled to any share of David's military disability benefits in the amount of $277 each month; (3) each party would execute and deliver all documents required to give full force and effect to the settlement agreement; and (4) each party waived the right to seek "alimony or separate support and maintenance, regardless of any change in their needs or any other circumstances."

[¶ 3] Following the entry of the divorce judgment, David and Lorraine each received their respective shares of the military retirement pay. In October 2000, the Department of Veterans Affairs determined that David suffered from major depression, which entitled him to increase his disability pay to the 100% rate. David elected to receive 100% disability compensation, and he waived his retirement pay in its entirety as a condition of this election. As a result, Lorraine's receipt of her share of David's retirement pay ended in November 2000.

[¶ 4] In response to David's postdivorce conversion of his retirement pay to disability pay, Lorraine filed a motion to enforce the divorce judgment and a motion for relief from the divorce judgment pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 60(b).¹ Following a non-testimonial hearing, the court denied the motion to enforce, concluding that the strong public policy favoring finality of judgments, particularly in the area of family law, precluded relief. The court noted that neither property distributions nor the permanent denial of spousal support in divorce judgments are subject to modification, and that

If these rules did not exist, the court would be overwhelmed by relitigation of contentious family law cases on these issues, in addition to the flood of post-judgment motions already allowed on issues of parental rights and responsibilities and child support.

[¶ 5] With respect to the motion for relief from judgment pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 60(b), the court concluded that although David's decision to convert his retirement pension to disability benefits "works a great injustice on [Lorraine], and unjustly enriches him," it could not grant the motion because the division of veterans' disability pay was precluded by the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act (USFSPA) in Mansell v. Mansell, 490 U.S. 581, 594-95, 109 S.Ct. 2023, 104 L.Ed.2d 675 (1989). In Mansell, the Court held that, under the USFSPA, a state divorce court may treat military retirement benefits, but not military disability benefits, as divisible marital property upon divorce. Id. at 589, 594-95, 109 S.Ct. 2023. The District Court concluded that "but for federal law, the court would exercise its discretion and reopen the judgment." This appeal followed.

II. DISCUSSION

[¶ 6] We address, in order: (A) the degree to which the USFSPA restricts an award of postjudgment relief; (B) whether Lorraine may be entitled to enforcement relief under the circumstances presented; and (C) whether Lorraine may be entitled to relief from judgment under the circumstances presented. We review the District Court's rulings on questions of law de novo. Blanchard v. Sawyer, 2001 ME 18, ¶ 5, 769 A.2d 841, 843.

A. The Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act

[¶ 7] Federal law permits a veteran who becomes disabled as a result of military service to receive disability benefits. 38 U.S.C. §§ 1110, 1131 (2000). Veterans who qualify as disabled are permitted to waive their retirement pay and receive a corresponding amount of disability pay instead. 38 U.S.C. § 5305 (2000). Indeed, there is a financial incentive for veterans who qualify for disability benefits to elect disability rather than retirement benefits; the former are exempt from both federal and state income taxes while the latter are not. See id. § 5301(a).

[¶ 8] The USFSPA provides that a state divorce court may treat military "disposable retired pay . . . as property of the member and his spouse in accordance with the law of the jurisdiction of such court." 10 U.S.C. § 1408(c)(1). The Act's definition of "disposable retired pay," however, excludes disability payments that a veteran receives as a result of waiving retirement pay. Id. § 1408(a)(4)(B).²

[¶ 9] These federal law provisions were considered in Mansell, in which the United States Supreme Court addressed the question of "whether state courts, consistent with the [USFSPA], may treat as property divisible upon divorce military retirement pay waived by the retiree in order to receive veterans' disability benefits." 490 U.S. at 583, 109 S.Ct. 2023. In Mansell, the parties were divorced in California in 1979 after a twenty-three year marriage. Id. at 585, 109 S.Ct. 2023. They entered into a property settlement agreement that provided that the husband would pay the wife fifty percent of his total military retirement pay, "including that portion of retirement pay waived so that [he] could receive disability benefits." Id. at 585-86, 109 S.Ct. 2023. In other words, the Mansell divorce judgment treated the portion of military retirement pay that had previously been converted to military disability pay as property subject to division. In 1983, the husband filed a motion to modify the judgment, seeking the termination of this provision. Id. at 586, 109 S.Ct. 2023. He asserted that the provision of the judgment awarding the wife a portion of his military retirement pay that had been waived in order to receive disability pay was precluded by the USFSPA. Id. The trial court denied the motion, and the husband lost his state appeal. Id. at 586-87, 109 S.Ct. 2023. The case reached the Supreme Court, which reversed and held that the USFSPA "does not grant state courts the power to treat as property divisible upon divorce military retirement pay that has been waived to receive veterans' disability benefits." Id. at 594-95, 109 S.Ct. 2023. Although Mansell arose from a postjudgment motion, the opinion addresses the application of the USFSPA to a prejudgment conversion of retirement pay to disability pay. See id. at 585-86, 109 S.Ct. 2023.

[¶ 10] Since Mansell, jurisdictions have divided on the question of whether the USFSPA limits the authority of state courts to grant relief when, as here, a postjudgment conversion of retirement pay to disability pay divests the share of retirement pay allocated to a former spouse in an earlier divorce judgment.³ Because Mansell explicitly addressed the USFSPA as precluding a state divorce court from treating military retirement pay that had previously been converted to disability pay "as property divisible upon divorce," (emphasis added) we agree with those jurisdictions that conclude that the USFSPA does not limit the authority of a state court to grant postjudgment relief when military retirement pay previously divided by a divorce judgment is converted to disability pay, so long as the relief awarded does not itself attempt to divide disability pay as marital property.⁴ Accordingly, if the court determines that Lorraine is entitled to enforcement relief or relief from judgment as a matter of state law, an ensuing order that results in David paying to Lorraine some or all of the amount she would have received directly from the United States Government absent David's conversion of his retirement pay to disability pay does not contravene Mansell. See, e.g., Krapf v. Krapf, 439 Mass. 97, 786 N.E.2d 318, 326 (2003) ("The [postdivorce] judgment in this case does not divide the defendant's VA disability benefits in contravention of the Ma...