Title: Scott v. Scott

State: delaware

Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court

Document:

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
TARA SCOTT,1 
 
 
Petitioner Below- 
Appellant, 
 
v. 
 
ETHAN SCOTT, 
 
Respondent Below- 
Appellee. 
§ 
§ 
§  No. 181, 2012 
§ 
§ 
§  Court Below—Family Court 
§  of the State of Delaware, 
§  in and for New Castle County 
§  File No. CN93-07448 
§  Petition No. 99-41043 
§   
 
 
 
 
 
Submitted: July 20, 2012 
 
 
 
 
  Decided: July 25, 2012 
 
Before HOLLAND, BERGER and RIDGELY, Justices. 
 
O R D E R 
 
This 25th day of July 2012, upon consideration of the parties’ briefs and the 
record below, it appears to the Court that: 
(1) 
The appellant, Tara Scott (the “Wife”), filed this appeal from a Family 
Court decision, dated March 6, 2012, which denied her motion to reopen a 2001 
judgment.  We find no merit to the appeal.  Accordingly, we affirm the Family 
Court’s judgment. 
(2) 
The parties were married in 1985, separated in 1999, and divorced in 
2000.  The Family Court issued a final order resolving matters ancillary to the 
parties’ divorce on February 5, 2001.  Among other things, the Family Court noted 
                                                 
1 The Court assigned pseudonyms to the parties pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 7(d). 
 
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in its decision that the parties had “agreed to award each other their percentage 
interest in their 401(k) Plans by QDRO’s to rollover into tax deferred accounts 
held or open by the other party.”  The Family Court also noted that the Husband’s 
pension would be divided and distributed pursuant to a QDRO to be prepared by 
the Wife’s lawyer.  The stipulated QDRO for the Husband’s pension was filed on 
July 2, 2001 and signed by the Family Court on July 5, 2001.  The Wife’s lawyer 
filed an amended stipulated QDRO for the Husband’s pension on April 25, 2002, 
which the Family Court signed on April 29, 2002.  No QDRO was ever filed 
regarding either party’s 401(k) plan. 
(3) 
On February 20, 2012, the Wife, acting pro se, filed a motion to 
reopen the divorce proceedings in the Family Court.  The Wife contended that, 
although she was awarded an interest in the Husband’s 401(k) plan, she never 
received any portion of it.  She requested the Family Court to enter an order 
awarding her her interest in the Husband’s 401(k) plan.  The Husband filed a 
response to the motion asserting that the Wife had failed to prepare a QDRO for 
the Husband’s 401(k) plan because the parties had agreed orally, notwithstanding 
the Family Court’s February 5, 2001 order, that each party would keep their own 
401(k) plan rather than divide them.  The Husband also argued that the Wife’s 
claim was barred by the doctrine of laches. 
 
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(4) 
On March 6, 2012, the Family Court denied the Wife’s motion to 
reopen on the ground that the Wife already had been awarded an interest in the 
Husband’s 401(k) plan by virtue of the February 5, 2001 judgment.  The Wife had 
failed to file the necessary QDRO to accomplish the terms of the Family Court’s 
order.  The Family Court accepted the veracity of the Husband’s lawyer’s 
representation that the parties had orally agreed post-trial to waive their counter-
interests in each other’s 401(k) plans.  This conclusion was substantiated by the 
fact that the Wife’s counsel had prepared a QDRO and an amended QDRO for the 
Husband’s pension plan but never filed one for the Husband’s 401(k) plan, nor had 
the Husband filed a QDRO for the Wife’s 401(k) plan. 
(5) 
In her opening brief on appeal, the Wife disputes that she and the 
Husband orally agreed to waive their counter-interests in each other’s 401(k) plans.  
The Wife instead asserts that her lawyer simply failed to prepare the proper 
paperwork because the Wife had not paid her lawyer’s fees.  She contends that she 
only recently became aware that the QDRO for the Husband’s 401(k) plan had 
never been filed.  The Wife’s contentions on appeal were not raised in the motion 
to reopen that she filed in the Family Court.   
(6) 
The decision to reopen a judgment is a matter within the sound 
discretion of the trial court.2  In this case, the Wife offered no explanation in her 
                                                 
2 Reynolds v. Reynolds, 595 A.2d 385, 389 (Del. 1991). 
 
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motion to reopen justifying her failure to timely file a QDRO for the Husband’s 
401(k).  Even if the Wife had argued that the failure to file the QDRO was the 
result of her lawyer’s mistake, we find no abuse of discretion in the Family Court’s 
finding that the parties had agreed to waive their respective claims in each other’s 
401(k) plans, as evidenced by the Husband’s counsel’s representation to that effect 
and as reflected by the Wife’s counsel’s filing of a QDRO and an amended QDRO 
regarding the Husband’s pension plan and neither party filing a QDRO for the 
other’s 401(k) plan. 
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Family 
Court is AFFIRMED. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BY THE COURT: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
/s/ Randy J. Holland 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Justice