Marriage of Jones, In re

• Decision Date: 07 February 1975
• Docket Number: S.F. 23161
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 531 P.2d 420 In re the MARRIAGE OF Sumiko and Herschel Ralph JONES. Sumiko JONES, Appellant, v. Herschel Ralph JONES, Respondent. In Bank

Page 108

119 Cal.Rptr. 108

13 Cal.3d 457, 531 P.2d 420

In re the MARRIAGE OF Sumiko and Herschel Ralph JONES.

Sumiko JONES, Appellant, v. Herschel Ralph JONES, Respondent.

S.F. 23161.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

Feb. 7, 1975.

Dewar, Romig & Anton, and Roderick L. Dewar, Monterey, for appellant.

Meheen & Poyner, M. Michael Meheen, and John F. Menken, Monterey, for respondent.

TOBRINER, Justice.

On this appeal, we hold that a married serviceman's right to disability pay, unlike a vested right to retirement pay, does not comprise a community asset and thus does not become subject to division upon dissolution of the marriage. Such disability pay is not a form of deferred compensation for past services. Rather, it serves to compensate the veteran for the personal anguish caused by the permanent disability as well as for the loss of earnings resulting from his compelled premature military retirement and from diminished ability to compete in the civilian job market. These losses and disabilities fall upon the disabled spouse, not on the uninjured and healthy one; hence, upon dissolution of marriage, the right of the disabled spouse to future disability payment should be his separate property.

Respondent Herschel Jones entered military service in 1957. He married petitioner Sumiko Jones in 1964. In 1969, Herschel lost a leg in combat in Vietnam, and was retired for disability, with monthly disability pay of $379.12. When Sumiko filed suit for dissolution of the marriage in 1972, she claimed her husband's right to lifetime disability payments as a community asset. The superior court rejected that claim, ruling that payments received after dissolution would be the separate property of the husband. Since we agree with the superior court that Herschel's right to disability payments subsequent to dissolution is not a community asset, we affirm the judgment.

Herschel's disability payments derive from the military retirement program enacted in title 10 of the United States Code. Section 1201 of that title provides that the secretary of the military branch concerned may retire a permanently disabled serviceman, with right to 'retired pay,' if either (a) he has served at least 20 years, (b) his disability rates at 30 percent or higher, and he has served at least 8 years, or (c) his disability rates at 30 percent or higher and was incurred on active duty, or in the line of duty during wartime. ¹ Permanently disabled servicemen whose length of service and degree of disability do not entitle them to retired pay receive disability severance pay. (10 U.S.C. § 1212.)

Section 1401 permits the veteran to elect between two alternative means of computing his 'retired pay.' ² He can compute his pay on the basis of longevity, receiving 2 1/2 percent of his monthly basic pay for each year of service. We shall refer to 'retired pay,' computed in this manner, as 'retirement pay' as that term is used in Marriage of Fithian (1974), 10 Cal.3d 592, 111 Cal.Rptr. 369, 517 P.2d 449. Alternatively, the veteran can compute his pay on the basis of disability, by multiplying his monthly basic pay by the rated percentage of disability. We shall refer to retired pay, computed on the basis of disability, as 'disability pay.' Under either alternative retired pay is limited to 75 percent of monthly basic pay. (10 U.S.C. § 1401.) ³

In the present case, Herschel, having served for only 12 years, had no vested right to a pension by reason of longevity of service; he receives a pension only because of his disability. In resolving the instant case, therefore, we do not decide whether, or to what extent, a disability pension granted After the serviceman has earned by longevity of service a vested right to retirement pay may constitute a community asset; we limit our decision to holding only that a serviceman's right to disability pay, acquired Before such a serviceman has earned by longevity of service a vested right to retirement pay, is not a community asset. ⁴

Congress, of course, may determine the community or separate character of a federally created benefit, and such determination binds the states. (Free v. Bland (1962) 369 U.S. 663, 668, 82 S.Ct. 1089, 8 L.Ed.2d 180; Wissner v. Wissner (1950) 338 U.S. 655, 660--661, 70 S.Ct. 398, 94 L.Ed. 424.) We find nothing in the statutes providing military disability pay, however, or in the history of the enactment and administration of those statutes, to suggest that Congress intended itself to determine whether the right of a married veteran, resident in a community property state, to disability pay is a community asset. We may therefore define the nature of the treatment to be accorded this benefit according to principles of California community property law so long as the result does not frustrate the objectives of the federal legislature. (In re Marriage of Fithian, Supra, 10 Cal.2d 592, 597 & fn. 4, 111 Cal.Rptr. 369, 517 P.2d 449.)

We have recently reaffirmed the principle that under California community property law vested retirement benefits, attributable to employment during marriage, constitute a community asset subject to division upon dissolution. (Waite v. Waite (1972) 6 Cal.3d 461, 99 Cal.Rptr. 325, 492 P.2d 13; Phillipson v. Board of Administration (1970) 3 Cal.3d 32, 89 Cal.Rptr. 61, 473 P.2d 765.) The principle rests upon the belief that retirement benefits are not gratuties but deferred consideration for past services rendered by the employee. (Waite v. Waite, Supra, 6 Cal.3d at p. 471, 492 P.2d 13.) Application of this principle of community property law compelled our conclusion in In re Marriage of Fithian, Supra, 10 Cal.3d 592, 604, 111 Cal.Rptr. 369, 517 P.2d 449, that military retirement benefits are divisible as community property.

Disability pay, however, does not serve primarily as a form of deferred compensation for past services. Although longevity of service plays a role, the veteran's right to disability payments, and the amount of the payments, depend primarily on the existence and extent of the disability. Such payments serve to compensate the disabled veteran for the loss of military pay caused by his premature retirement and for his diminished ability to compete for civilian employment. (See Note (1973) 27 JAG J. 392, 400.) So long as the marriage subsists, the veteran's reduced earnings work a loss to the community. But such community loss does not continue after dissolution; at that point the earnings or accumulations of each party are the separate property of such party. (Civ.Code, § 5119.) Then any diminution in earning capacity becomes the separate loss of the disabled spouse.

Disability payments serve a second purpose. We have suggested Supra that they compensate the veteran for the pain, suffering, disfigurement and the misfortune caused by his disability. Pain, suffering, disfigurement or the loss of a limb, as here, is the peculiar anguish of the person who suffers it; it can never be wholly shared even by a loving spouse and surely not after the dissolution of a marriage by a departed one.

Disability pay, consequently, compares to compensation for personal injury rather than to retirement pay. ⁵ The right of an injured spouse to such compensation, under California law, is not a community asset, and thus not subject to division upon dissolution of the marriage. Although compensation actually recovered during the marriage is community property (Zaragosa v. Craven (1949) 33 Cal.2d 315, 320--321, 202 P.2d 73), we held in Washington v. Washington (1956), 47 Cal.2d 249, 302 P.2d 569, that a cause of action for personal injuries which had not been reduced to judgment at the date of divorce became the separate property of the injured spouse.

Civil Code section 5126 extends the holding of Washington to cases in which the claim has been reduced to judgment or settlement; the section states that 'All money or other property received by a married person in satisfaction of a judgment for damages for personal injury or pursuant to an agreement for the settlement or compromise of a claim for such damages is the separate property of the injured person if such money or other property is received . . . (3) after the rendition of an interlocutory decree of disolution of a marriage.' Thus California, after years of vacillation caused by the effect of the community property law upon the doctrine of imputed contributory negligence, ⁶ has evolved a simple rule: personal injury damages received during marriage are community property, but amounts received after dissolution are the separate property of the injured spouse. (See In re Marriage of Pinto (1972) 28 Cal.App.3d 86, 89, 104 Cal.Rptr. 371; Walzer, Cal. Marital Termination Settlements (Cont.Ed.Bar 1971) p. 61; Attorney's Guide to Family Law Practice (Cont.Ed.Bar 2d ed. 1972) pp. 247--248.)

The basis for this rule was explained by Justice Traynor in Washington v. Washington, Supra, 47 Cal.2d 249, 302 P.2d 569. In language fully applicable to the disability benefits at issue here, he explained that although a rule classifying personal injury damages as community property 'may be justified when it appears that the marriage will continue, it loses its force when the marriage is dissolved after the cause of action accrues. In such a case not only may the personal elements of damages such as past pain and suffering be reasonably treated as belonging to the injured party, but the damages for future pain and suffering, future expenses, and future loss of earnings are clearly attributable to him as a single person following the divorce. Moreover, as in any other case involving future earnings or other after acquired property, the wife's right, if any, to future support may be protected by an award of alimony.' (47 Cal.2d 249, 253--254, 302 P.2d 569, 571.)

The reasoning of Washington compels the conclusion that military disability payments received after dissolution of a marriage should also be...