Jackson v. Jackson
| Decision Date | 27 November 2019 |
| Docket Number | Record No. 181229 |
| Citation | 835 S.E.2d 68 |
| Parties | Marie Dolores JACKSON v. Dennis Michael JACKSON |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
Amy N. Tobias (Claire Salitsky; Dougherty Tobias Iszard Northern Virginia Law, on briefs), for appellant.
Thomas Woehrle (Woehrle Dahlberg Jones Yao, on brief), for appellee.
PRESENT: All the Justices
OPINION BY JUSTICE WILLIAM C. MIMS
In this appeal, we consider the extent of a circuit court’s jurisdiction to modify a pension distribution order under Code § 20-107.3(K)(4).
Marie Dolores Jackson and Dennis Michael Jackson married in June 1974. They obtained a final decree of divorce a vinculo matrimonii in January 2011. In the decree, the circuit court ratified the parties’ agreement as to equitable distribution, which they had earlier confirmed in a hearing before a commissioner in chancery. For the purposes of distributing some marital property, the parties agreed to apply August 16, 2004 as the date of their separation.
(emphasis omitted).)
The same day it entered the decree, the circuit court also entered an order captioned "Order Dividing Military Pension" ("ODMP"). The ODMP ordered that "[t]o accomplish the division of the marital property between the parties in accordance" with the decree, Marie "is assigned an annuity in the monthly amount of $1,053.39." It also stated that the court retained jurisdiction under Code § 20-107.3(K)(4) "to make any additional orders necessary to effectuate and enforce" the ODMP. Both parties signed the decree and the ODMP without objection.
In January 2017, Marie filed motions to reopen the proceeding and for entry of an order amending the ODMP. She asserted that the $1,053.39 monthly payment awarded to her in the ODMP did not represent 50% of Dennis’ monthly benefit for two reasons. First, she claimed that Dennis’ monthly benefit had increased over the years from cost-of-living-adjustments ("COLAs") but that her monthly payment had not increased because the ODMP had awarded her a fixed dollar amount. Second, she claimed that the costs of allocating the survivor benefit to her had been miscalculated when determining the fixed amount in the ODMP in the first place, and further that those costs would end after a period of time but that the ODMP made no provision for increasing her fixed amount thereafter. She argued that the ODMP therefore impermissibly altered the distribution made in the decree and that the court should enter a new order awarding her 50% of the monthly benefit.
At a hearing on the motions, Dennis asserted through counsel that, under Department of Defense guidelines, the pension administrator would not accept an order directing it to subtract the cost of a survivor benefit from one party. Consequently, the parties had to calculate it and subtract it from Marie’s share before specifying an amount to award her in the ODMP or else the administrator would not accept it. He also asserted that the decree specifically referenced August 16, 2004 as the parties’ separation date and the amount of Dennis’ monthly pension benefit as of that date because the parties affirmatively intended to calculate the specific dollar amount of Marie’s payment through the 50% formula (minus the cost of the survivor benefit) as of that specific date and as applied to that specific amount. Consequently, he asserted, the parties had agreed, and the decree had intended, to exclude Marie from any subsequent COLA increases.
At the conclusion of the hearing, the court ruled that the ODMP was not inconsistent with the decree. It stated that the fact that both parties signed it without objection was relevant but not dispositive. It ruled that the ODMP merely implemented the 50%-minus-survivor-benefit-cost formula agreed to by the parties and ratified in the decree. It concluded that because the ODMP was not inconsistent with the decree, it would not amend the ODMP. The court later entered a final order memorializing its ruling.
Marie thereafter appealed to the Court of Appeals. In a published opinion, Jackson v. Jackson , 69 Va. App. 243, 817 S.E.2d 676 (2018), that court ruled that, regardless of any of the circuit court’s other rulings, it had lacked jurisdiction to amend the ODMP on Marie’s January 2017 motion because it was final under Rule 1:1, which limits a court’s jurisdiction to 21 days after entry of a final judgment, order, or decree. The Court of Appeals noted that the circuit court had entered the ODMP, with both parties’ consent, on the same day as the decree, so the ODMP was entered within the 21-day period for modifying the decree. In the view of the Court of Appeals, the ODMP therefore controlled to the extent there were any differences between it and the decree, so Code § 20-107.3(K)(4) did not apply. It concluded that if Marie believed that the amount awarded to her in the ODMP was inaccurate, she could either have sought a correction within 21 days of its entry or appealed. She did neither.
The Court of Appeals further ruled that Code § 20-107.3(K)(4) does not permit a circuit court to alter the substance of a pension distribution order after the 21-day period provided by Rule 1:1. Rather, it merely permits a court to modify such an order if the original order was rejected by a plan administrator, so that it may enter a revised order that conforms to the plan’s requirements. In the view of the Court of Appeals, by signing the ODMP without objection when it was entered, Marie had represented to the circuit court at that time that the order correctly implemented the distribution ordered in the decree. The Court of Appeals therefore affirmed the circuit court’s judgment.
We awarded Marie this appeal.
Marie’s appeal to this Court comprises three assignments of error. In the first, she asserts that the Court of Appeals erred by holding that the circuit court lacked jurisdiction under Code § 20-107.3(K)(4) to amend the ODMP to give effect to the decree because the ODMP was entered within 21 days of the decree, so if there was any discrepancy between them, the ODMP controlled. In the second, she asserts that it erred by holding that Code § 20-107.3(K)(4) did not permit the circuit court to modify the ODMP to give effect to the decree. In the third, she asserts that it erred by holding that Code § 20-107.3(K)(4) does not apply when a circuit court still has jurisdiction within Rule 1:1’s 21-day period. Each of these assertions challenge the Court of Appeals’ interpretation of the statute, which we review de novo. May v. R.A. Yancey Lumber Corp. , 297 Va. 1, 13, 822 S.E.2d 358 (2019).
Cuccinelli v. Rector & Visitors of the Univ. of Va. , 283 Va. 420, 425, 722 S.E.2d 626 (2012) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
Eberhardt v. Fairfax Cnty. Emps’ Ret. Sys. Bd. of Trs. , 283 Va. 190, 194, 721 S.E.2d 524 (2012) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). However, Id. at 194-95, 721 S.E.2d 524.
(Emphasis added).
It is clear from the plain meaning of this language that the General Assembly intended to confer upon circuit courts power that they previously did not have. The question is, what is the scope of the new power? To answer that question, we must first review courts’ general jurisdiction in equitable distribution, which is the subject of Code § 20-107.3.
Unless the issue of equitable distribution is bifurcated and a circuit court expressly reserves jurisdiction to decide it later as provided by Code §...
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