Case Title: Burke v. Burke

Citation: 

Docket Number: 351, 2013

State: delaware

Court: Delaware Supreme Court

Date: 2013-12-20T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
DARREN BURKE,1  
 
Respondent Below- 
Appellant, 
 
v. 
 
  PATRICIA BURKE,  
            
           Petitioner Below- 
Appellee. 
§ 
§  No. 351, 2013 
§ 
§ 
§  Court Below─Family Court 
§  of the State of Delaware 
§  in and for New Castle County 
§  File No. CN99-10337 
§  Petition No. 99-32643 
§ 
§ 
 
      Submitted:  October 25, 2013 
 
 
 
 
         Decided:  December 20, 2013 
 
Before HOLLAND, BERGER and JACOBS, Justices 
 
 
 
 
 
 
O R D E R  
 
 
This 20th day of December 2013, upon consideration of the briefs of 
the parties and the record below, it appears to the Court that: 
 
(1) 
The respondent-appellant, Darren Burke (“Darren”), filed an 
appeal from the Family Court’s June 3, 2013 order denying his motion for 
reargument pursuant to Family Court Civil Rule 59(e) and the Family 
Court’s April 25, 2013 order granting in part and denying in part the motion 
of the petitioner-appellee, Patricia Burke (“Patricia”), to reopen the 
                                                 
1 The Court sua sponte assigned pseudonyms to the parties by Order dated July 3, 2013.  
Supr. Ct. R. 7(d). 
 
2
judgment pursuant to Family Court Civil Rule 60.  We find no merit to the 
appeal.  Accordingly, we affirm. 
 
(2) 
The record before us reflects that, during their marriage, both 
Darren and Patricia were employees of the State of Delaware.  On January 
11, 2001, following their divorce in August of 2000, the Family Court 
entered an order dismissing the ancillary matter of property division 
pursuant to Rule 16(e) for the failure of both parties to submit the required 
financial statements.  On June 6, 2004, Patricia filed a motion for pension 
allocation.  In connection with the motion, Patricia submitted two signed 
Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (“QRDOs”), the first on behalf of 
Darren against her State pension (“QRDO I”) and the second on behalf of 
herself against Darren’s State pension (“QRDO II”).  Both QDROs had been 
signed by the parties in 2000, subsequent to their divorce.      
 
(3) 
On June 23, 2004, the Family Court, re-opening sua sponte its 
earlier dismissal of the ancillary matter of property division, granted the 
motion for pension allocation.  A copy of QDRO I was signed by the judge, 
placed in the Family Court file and sent to the State pension office.  
However, for reasons that are unclear, a copy of QRDO II apparently was 
never placed in the Family Court’s file and apparently was never sent to the 
State Pension Office.  On July 15, 2004, an attorney entered his appearance 
 
3
on behalf of Darren with respect to ancillary matters.  The record reflects 
that the attorney was retained to examine the Family Court file to determine 
if there was any impediment to Darren’s obtaining a construction loan for a 
house in Florida.  
 
(4) 
The record reflects that neither party took any action with 
respect to the pension allocation issue until Patricia requested to review the 
Family Court’s file in February 2013.  On March 26, 2013, Patricia filed a 
motion to reopen the matter of her motion for pension allocation.  In her 
motion, Patricia alleged that, in 2000, each party had executed a QDRO 
granting the other party the right to receive payments under his or her State 
pension and that copies of both QDRO I and QDRO II had been attached to 
her 2004 motion for pension allocation.  Patricia stated that she had been 
working in Qatar from mid-June until late December 2004 and believed that 
the State Pension Office had received all the relevant documents from the 
Family Court.  Finally, Patricia alleged that she was not aware of a problem 
until February 2013, when she contacted the State Pension Office following 
Darren’s 
retirement 
in 
mid-2012 
and 
was 
told, 
after 
several 
miscommunications, that they had no record of ever having received QDRO 
II.  Subsequently, after reviewing the Family Court’s file, she discovered 
that QDRO II was missing.   
 
4
 
(5) 
In addition to moving to reopen, Patricia also requested that the 
Family Court accept a copy of the missing QDRO II, correct certain 
typographical errors in both QDRO I and QDRO II, enter the corrected 
copies of QRDO I and II and order Darren to pay her that portion of his 
pension benefits to which she was entitled under the formula contained in 
the signed QDROs---33.1%---from the date of his retirement up to the 
present.   
 
(6) 
In response to Patricia’s motion to reopen, Darren admitted 
signing both QDRO I and II in 2000, but claimed that, when the Family 
Court dismissed the ancillary matter of property division on January 11, 
2001, he assumed that Patricia had abandoned her interest in his pension.  
He alleged that in reliance on that assumption, he had made personal and 
financial changes in his life, including re-marrying, purchasing certain real 
estate, borrowing funds for those purchases and retiring earlier than he 
otherwise would have done.  Darren further alleged that he was unaware of 
Patricia’s 2004 motion for pension allocation.  Darren, finally, argued that 
Patricia’s delay in asserting her rights constituted laches that should preclude 
the Family Court from granting her request for relief.  On April 25, 2013, the 
Family Court granted the relief requested in Patricia’s motion to reopen, 
 
5
with the exception that Patricia would receive a percentage of Darren’s 
pension benefits only prospectively, and not retroactively.   
 
(7) 
In his appeal from the Family Court’s April 25, 2013 order, 
Darren claims that the Family Court erred and abused its discretion by 
reopening the matter of the parties’ pensions, because Patricia’s delay in 
asserting her rights constituted laches and because the standards of Rule 60 
were not satisfied.2  Darren does not dispute the 33.1% figure asserted by 
Patricia as the percentage of his monthly pension payment to which she is 
entitled.  
 
(8) 
Motions to reopen in the Family Court are governed by Rule 
60.  In this case, the Family Court relied upon Rules 60(a) and 60(b) (6) in 
granting Patricia’s motion to reopen.  Under Rule 60(a), clerical mistakes or 
mathematical errors in judgments, orders or other parts of the record and 
errors resulting from oversight or omission may be corrected by the Family 
Court at any time sua sponte or on motion of a party.  Under Rule 60(b), the 
Family Court may relieve a party from a final judgment or order if that party 
can establish one of the following:  1) mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or 
excusable neglect; 2) newly discovered evidence; 3) fraud; 4) the judgment 
                                                 
2 Because Darren presents no claim with respect to his appeal from the Family Court’s 
June 3, 2013 order denying his motion for reargument, we conclude that any such 
argument has been abandoned and, therefore, we will not address it.  Murphy v. State, 
632 A.2d 1150, 1152 (Del. 1993).   
 
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is void; 5) the judgment has been satisfied; or 6) any other reason justifying 
relief from the operation of the judgment.  In the absence of any legal error, 
our standard of review of the Family Court’s decision to reopen a matter 
pursuant to Rule 60 is abuse of discretion.3  This Court has ruled that the 
Family Court has discretion to vacate a judgment pursuant to Rule 60(b) (6) 
in “extraordinary circumstances” and may do so “whenever such action is 
appropriate to accomplish justice.”4 
 
(9) 
In its April 25, 2013 order, the Family Court found that:  a) 
there was a clerical error on the part of the Family Court in 2004 when only 
QDRO I was signed by the judge and placed in the Family Court file; b) the 
Family Court committed a clerical error in 2004 regarding Patricia’s social 
security number; c) Darren’s address had changed since 2004 and the 
QDROs should be modified to reflect that change; and d) it was the original 
intent of the Family Court judge in 2004 to sign QDRO II, place it in the 
Family Court’s file and send a copy of it to the State Pension Office in the 
ordinary course of business.  The Family Court concluded that this case 
involved the kind of “extraordinary circumstances” contemplated in the 
Jewell case and, accordingly re-opened the matter of the parties’ pensions in 
                                                 
3 Snyder v. Snyder, 2010 WL 3463390 (Del. 2010); Cox v. General Motors Corp., 239 
A.2d 706, 707 (Del. 1967) . 
4 Jewell v. Div. of Soc. Services, 401 A.2d 88, 90 (Del. 1979) (citing Klapprott v. United 
States, 335 U.S. 601, 615 (1949)). 
 
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order to “accomplish justice.”  The Family Court also determined in the 
interest of justice not to penalize Darren by declining to order him to 
disgorge Patricia’s share of the pension benefits he had already received.    
 
(10) The Family Court rejected Darren’s argument that Patricia’s 
claim was barred by laches,5 finding that she had waited only one month to 
file her motion to reopen after discovering that the Family Court file did not 
contain a copy of QDRO II.  The Family Court did not credit Darren’s 
argument that he was prejudiced by any delay by Patricia in filing her 
motion to reopen.  Finally, the Family Court noted that Darren had taken no 
action in 2004 to oppose Patricia’s motion for pension allocation, even 
though he had engaged counsel to review the Family Court’s file shortly 
thereafter and should have been aware of the filing of Patricia’s motion.6 
 
(11) We have carefully reviewed the parties’ submissions, the 
Family Court’s April 25, 2013 decision, as well as the Family Court record 
in this case.  The record reflects that the Family Court appropriately 
considered the parties’ respective positions in this matter, applied the correct 
legal standards and acted well within its discretion in granting in part and 
                                                 
5 Reid v. Spazio, 970 A.2d 176, 182 (Del. 2009) (laches constitutes “an unreasonable 
delay” by the movant after learning “of an infringement of his rights, thereby resulting in 
material prejudice” to the non-moving party). 
6 Id. 
 
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denying in part Patricia’s motion to reopen.7  In the absence of any error or 
abuse of discretion on the part of the Family Court, we conclude that the 
Family Court’s judgment should be affirmed. 
 
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the 
Family Court is AFFIRMED. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BY THE COURT: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
/s/ Randy J. Holland 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Justice 
 
 
 
                                                 
7 We note that Darren’s arguments regarding Rule 60(b) (1) do not appear to have been   
presented to the Family Court in the first instance, precluding our review in this appeal.  
Supr. Ct. R. 8.  We are not persuaded by those arguments in any case.