Roberts v. Roberts

• Decision Date: 03 June 2014
• Docket Number: No. WD 76679.,WD 76679.
• Citation: 432 S.W.3d 789
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals
• Parties: Deborah L. ROBERTS, Appellant, v. Michael L. ROBERTS, Respondent.

432 S.W.3d 789

Deborah L. ROBERTS, Appellant,
v.
Michael L. ROBERTS, Respondent.

No. WD 76679.

Missouri Court of Appeals,
Western District.

June 3, 2014.

[432 S.W.3d 791]

Paul E. Evans, Blue Springs, MO, for appellant.

Jeffrey S. Royer, Blue Springs, MO, for respondent.

Before Division Two: VICTOR C. HOWARD, P.J., and ALOK AHUJA and MARK D. PFEIFFER, JJ.

ALOK AHUJA, Judge.

Deborah Roberts (“Wife”) appeals from a qualified domestic relations order or “QDRO” entered by the Circuit Court of Jackson County, which specifies that, under a 1990 dissolution decree, Wife is entitled to one-half of only the marital portion of her ex-husband's retirement benefits. We affirm.

Factual Background

Wife was married to Michael Roberts (“Husband”) on April 9, 1976. Wife filed a petition to dissolve the marriage on September

[432 S.W.3d 792]

19, 1989. A hearing on the petition was held on March 20, 1990. The trial court entered its Decree of Dissolution of Marriage that same day. The decree incorporated a written Separation Agreement signed by both Husband and Wife.

Husband was employed at the Marine Corps Finance Center in Kansas City, an agency of the federal government, during the marriage. His compensation package included certain pension rights through the Civil Service Retirement System. The Separation Agreement incorporated into the Dissolution Decree provided that Husband transferred to Wife

Fifty percent (50%) of the Husband's Civil Service Retirement System “annuity with survivor benefit to named person having an insurable interest” as the surviving beneficiary thereof, subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Decree of Dissolution of Marriage and further subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Husband's United States Government Civil Service Retirement System and its Rules and Regulations pertaining thereto.

At the time of the dissolution of marriage, all of Husband's work for the Marine Corps Finance Center had occurred during the marriage, and therefore all of his existing pension rights had been earned during the marriage.

Husband continued to work for the Marine Corps Finance Center following the dissolution, however. He retired from the Center in 2013, almost twenty-three years after the dissolution of his marriage to Wife. Husband believed that the 1990 dissolution decree awarded Wife one half of only the marital portion of his pension. The federal Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) informed him, however, that it believed that the decree required it to allocate half of his entire pension to Wife, including one-half of the benefits which Husband earned as a result of his post-dissolution employment.

On March 22, 2013, Husband filed a Motion for Judgment Entry of Domestic Relations Order with the circuit court. In his motion, Michael asked the trial court to adopt his proposed form of judgment, which was intended to constitute a “Court Order Acceptable for Processing,” or “COAP,” under OPM's regulations. Husband's proposed COAP specified that Wife was only entitled to one-half of the “Marital Portion” of Husband's pension benefits. The COAP provided that

[f]or purposes of calculating the Former Spouse's share of Employee's benefit, the Marital Portion shall be determined by multiplying the Employee's Gross Monthly Annuity by a fraction, the numerator of which is the total number of months of Creditable Service earned by the Employee during the marriage from April 9, 1976 to March 20, 1990, and the denominator of which is the total number of months of the Employee's Creditable Service accrued under [the Civil Service Retirement System]....

The trial court entered a judgment incorporating the terms of Husband's proposed COAP on April 8, 2013. Wife filed a motion to set aside the judgment on May 6, 2013. She argued that the 1990 dissolution decree unequivocally provided that she was entitled to half of Husband's entire pension benefit, rather than merely one-half of the pension rights Husband earned during the marriage. The trial court denied Wife's motion on July 16, 2013. Wife appeals.¹

[432 S.W.3d 793]

Analysis

Section 452.330.5 ² provides:

The court's order as it affects distribution of marital property shall be a final order not subject to modification; provided, however, that orders intended to be qualified domestic relations orders affecting pension, profit sharing and stock bonus plans pursuant to the U.S. Internal Revenue Code shall be modifiable only for the purpose of establishing or maintaining the order as a qualified domestic relations order or to revise or conform its terms so as to effectuate the expressed intent of the order.

The trial court's judgment adopting the COAP constitutes a “qualified domestic relations order” or “QDRO” within the meaning of § 452.330.5. Kuba v. Kuba, 400 S.W.3d 869, 873–75 (Mo.App. W.D.2013). Therefore, even though divisions of marital property are generally non-modifiable, the trial court had the authority to enter the COAP for the purpose of “effectuat[ing] the expressed intent of” the 1990 dissolution decree. “ ‘Interpretation of a dissolution judgment and a QDRO is an issue of law that we review de novo.’ ” Id. at 875 (quoting In re Marriage of Green, 341 S.W.3d 169, 175 (Mo.App. E.D.2011)).

The present dispute must be understood against the backdrop of the Missouri statutes addressing the division of property in a dissolution proceeding. Where a court establishes its own property division, marital and nonmarital property are treated in significantly different ways. Section 452.330.1 provides that “[i]n a proceeding for dissolution of the marriage [,] ... the court shall set apart to each spouse such spouse's nonmarital property and shall divide the marital property and marital debts in such proportions as the court deems just after considering all relevant factors....”

Thus, per section 452.330, the trial court is charged with completion of a two-step process: [¶] First, the court must set apart to each spouse his or her separate property. Second, the court must divide the remaining marital property.

Pollard v. Pollard, 401 S.W.3d 506, 511 (Mo.App. W.D.2013) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “ ‘[A] court has no authority acting on its own to divide separate or nonmarital property and in fact commits prima facie error when it awards a spouse a partial interest in the other spouse's nonmarital property.’ ” Dahn v. Dahn, 346 S.W.3d 325, 337 n. 9 (Mo.App. W.D.2011) (quoting In re Marriage of Medlock, 990 S.W.2d 186, 188 (Mo.App. S.D.1999)).

Property acquired or earned during the marriage is generally presumed to be marital property, while property acquired before or after the marriage is presumed to be nonmarital. Section 452.330.3 provides that

[a]ll property acquired by either spouse subsequent to the marriage and prior to a decree of legal separation or dissolution of marriage is presumed to be marital property regardless of whether title is held individually or by the spouses in some form of co-ownership such as joint tenancy, tenancy in common, tenancy by the entirety, and community property.

[432 S.W.3d 794]

There is a strong presumption that property acquired during the marriage is marital property. Heslop v. Heslop, 967 S.W.2d 249, 254 (Mo.App. W.D.1998). “Conversely, if property was acquired outside the marriage, it is presumed to be nonmarital.” Petties...