Trahan v. Trahan

• Decision Date: 08 March 1995
• Docket Number: No. 03-93-00607-CV,03-93-00607-CV
• Citation: 894 S.W.2d 113
• Parties: Emma J. TRAHAN, Appellant, v. Jack F. TRAHAN, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 113

894 S.W.2d 113

Emma J. TRAHAN, Appellant, v. Jack F. TRAHAN, Appellee.

No. 03-93-00607-CV.

Court of Appeals of Texas Austin.

March 8, 1995.

Rehearing Overruled April 5, 1995.

Philip C. Friday, Jr., Austin, for appellant.

William R. Travis, Austin, for appellee.

Before POWERS, JONES and B.A. SMITH, JJ.

POWERS, Justice.

Jack F. Trahan sued Emma Trahan, his former wife, for declaratory judgment that a 1983 final judgment, partitioning between them Jack's right to military retired pay, had become invalid and unenforceable because of a subsequent, retroactive amendment to the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act, 10 U.S.C.A. § 1408(c)(1) (West 1983 & Supp.1994). The trial court awarded him declaratory relief to that effect. Emma appeals. We will reverse the trial-court judgment and render judgment that the 1983 judgment is a final, valid, subsisting, and enforceable judgment.

THE CONTROVERSY

Emma and Jack were married from September 1943 until their first divorce on January 22, 1963. They remarried on October 28, 1970, and were again divorced on May 7, 1971. Neither divorce decree disposed of Jack's right to military retired pay. On February 14, 1977, Emma filed a partition action in which the district court concluded that 77.92% of Jack's right to retired pay was community property which should have been divided at divorce. The court partitioned the On September 8, 1982, Congress enacted 10 U.S.C.A. § 1408, the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act ("USFSPA"). The statute effectively nullified the McCarty decision and allowed states to apply their own community property laws as they had done before McCarty. ¹

right to retired pay. This trial-court judgment was affirmed in part and modified in part in Trahan v. Trahan, 609 S.W.2d 820 (Tex.Civ.App.--Texarkana 1980), rev'd, 626 S.W.2d 485 (Tex.1981). Jack filed an application for writ of error to the Supreme Court of Texas. While the application was pending, the United States Supreme Court decided the case of McCarty v. McCarty, 453 U.S. 210, 101 S.Ct. 2728, 69 L.Ed.2d 589 (1981), which held that federal law precluded a state court's partition of military non-disability retired pay pursuant to state community property laws. Following McCarty, the Texas Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals and rendered judgment for Jack. Trahan v. Trahan, 626 S.W.2d 485 (Tex.1981).

On February 10, 1983, Emma again filed a suit to partition Jack's pension benefits. The 200th District Court of Travis County, in cause number 344,539, awarded Emma 38.96% of Jack's retired pay from June 25, 1981. This judgment was appealed and affirmed in Trahan v. Trahan, 682 S.W.2d 332 (Tex.App.--Austin 1984, writ ref'd n.r.e.), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1002, 106 S.Ct. 1171, 89 L.Ed.2d 291 (1986) (appeal dismissed for want of a substantial federal question).

On November 5, 1990 Congress amended the USFSPA ("1990 amendment"), resulting in the instant dispute. The portion of the amendment in controversy reads as follows:

(c)(1) ... A court may not treat retired pay as property in any proceeding to divide or partition any amount of retired pay of a member as the property of the member and the member's spouse or former spouse if a final decree of divorce, dissolution, annulment, or legal separation (including a court ordered, ratified, or approved property settlement incident to such decree) affecting the member and the member's spouse or former spouse (A) was issued before June 25, 1981, and (B) did not treat (or reserve jurisdiction to treat) any amount of retired pay of the member as property of the member and the member's spouse or former spouse.

10 U.S.C.A. § 1408(c)(1) (West Supp.1994). The effective date section of the 1990 amendment states:

The amendment made by subsection (a) [amending subsection (c)(1) of section 1408] shall apply with respect to judgments issued before, on, or after the date of the enactment of this Act [Nov. 5, 1990]. In the case of a judgment issued before the date of the enactment of this Act, such amendment shall not relieve any obligation, otherwise valid, to make a payment that is due to be made before the end of the two-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act [Nov. 5, 1990].

Pub.L. No. 101-510, § 555(e), 104 Stat. 1569, 1570 (1990), amended by Pub.L. No. 102-190, § 1062(a)(1), 105 Stat. 1475 (1991).

Based on the 1990 amendment, the trial court nullified the 1983 judgment affirming the partition of Jack's military retirement benefits and enjoined any payments after November 5, 1992. Emma brings four points of error.

HOLDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In her first two points of error, Emma complains (1) the trial court erred in failing to hold that res judicata barred reopening the 1983 judgment regardless of the 1990 amendment, and (2) the trial court's retroactive application of the 1990 amendment to a valid judgment of a Texas court is unconstitutional under the due process clause of the United States Constitution. In essence, Emma argues she obtained a vested property

right under the 1983 partition judgment, which right could not later be confiscated without compensation. Jack responds by citing the congressional intent behind enactment of the 1990 amendment and concludes that res judicata and the prohibition against retrospective laws do not apply in this case because a service member's right to military retired pay never vests.

Congressional Intent

Despite several decisions to the contrary, ² it is now apparent that the original USFSPA, as enacted in 1982, ³ was not intended to apply retroactively. See John B. McKnight, Closing the McCarty-USFSPA Window: A Proposal for Relief from McCarty-Era Final Judgments, 63 Tex.L.Rev. 497, 512 (1984). ⁴ In first enacting the USFSPA, Congress did not intend for courts to allow the reopening of divorce cases that had become final before the McCarty decision. Redus v. Redus, 852 S.W.2d 94, 96 (Tex.App.--Austin 1993, writ denied). The legislative history reveals:

The committee is concerned because some state courts have been less than faithful in their adherence to the spirit of the law [USFSPA]. The reopening of divorce cases finalized before the Supreme Court's decision in McCarty v. McCarty that did not divide retired pay continues to be a significant problem. Years after final divorce decrees have been issued, some state courts ... have reopened cases (through partition actions or otherwise) to award a share of retired pay. Although Congress has twice stated in report language that this result was not intended, the practice continues unabated. Such action is inconsistent with the notion that a final decree of divorce represents a final disposition of the marital estate.

H.R.Rep. No. 665, 101st Cong., 2d Sess. 279, reprinted in 1990 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2931, 3005.

The legislative intent behind the original enactment of the USFSPA and cases examining the doctrine of res judicata as it applied to the 1983 version of the USFSPA, however, are not dispositive of whether the express statutory language in the 1990 amendment, giving rise to retroactive application, displaces the doctrine of res judicata. Before the 1990 amendment, the USFSPA did not contain any language mandating retroactive application.

In enacting the 1990 amendment, the intent of Congress to cure an unintended interpretation of the USFSPA by the courts is abundantly clear. "The amendment ... shall apply ... to judgments issued before, on, or after the date of the enactment of this Act." Pub.L. No. 101-510, § 555(e), 104 Stat. 1569, 1570 (1990), amended by Pub.L. No. 102-190, § 1062(a)(1), 105 Stat. 1475 Furthermore, the Code of Federal Regulations reinforces the assertion that the amendment was intended to affect valid court judgments.

(1991) (emphasis added). The last sentence of the effective date paragraph is also inescapably retroactive and mandatory. "[J]udgment[s] issued before the date of the enactment ... shall not relieve any obligation, otherwise valid, to make a payment that is due to be made before the end of the two-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act." Id. (emphasis added). The intent evident in this paragraph is that section 1408(c)(1) applies to final judgments issued before the 1990 USFSPA amendment and suspends any further payment to be made pursuant to a final judgment after November 5, 1992, two years after the enactment of the amendment.

A modification on or after June 26, 1981, of a court order that originally awarded a division of retired pay as property before June 26, 1981, may be honored for subsequent court-ordered changes made for clarification, such as the interpretation of a computation formula in the original court order. For court orders issued before June 26, 1981, subsequent amendments after that date to provide for a division of retired pay as property are unenforceable....

32 C.F.R. § 63.6(c)(7) (1993) (emphasis added).

Res Judicata

We must now determine whether the amendment to the USFSPA preempts application of the Texas common law doctrine of res judicata. The supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution orders that a congressional enactment preempts all inconsistent state legislation if conflicts exist between state and federal law. U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2. See generally, Richard P. Shafer, Federal Pre-emption of State Authority Over Domestic Relations-Federal Cases, 70 L.Ed.2d 895, 897 (1983). The field of domestic relations is generally a matter of state law, and the United States Supreme Court has consistently recognized that when Congress passes general legislation, it rarely intends to displace state law in that particular area. Mansell v. Mansell, 490 U.S. 581, 109 S.Ct. 2023, 104 L.Ed.2d 675 (1989) (citing Rose v. Rose, 481 U.S. 619, 628, 107 S.Ct. 2029, 95 L.Ed.2d 599 (1987) and Hisquierdo v. Hisquierdo, 439 U.S. 572, 581, 99 S.Ct. 802, 808, 59 L.Ed.2d 1 (1979)). Federal law will only preempt state law in...