Source: http://www.leagle.com/decision/2000649234F3d415_1588/TRUSTEES%20OF%20DIRECTORS%20GUILD%20OF%20AMERICA%20v.%20TISE
Timestamp: 2017-07-21 22:38:44
Document Index: 284196355

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2060', '§ 5103', '§ 1056', '§ 1056', '§ 1055', '§ 1055', '§ 1055', '§ 1055', '§ 1738']

234 F.3d 415 (2000) | TRUSTEES OF DIRECTORS GUILD... | Leagle.com
234 F.3d 415 (2000)
TRUSTEES OF DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA v. TISE
Nos. 96-16799, 96-16994.
Citing Case 234 F.3d 415 (2000)
TRUSTEES OF THE DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA-PRODUCER PENSION BENEFITS PLANS, a collectively bargained, joint-trusteed labor-management trust, Plaintiff-Appellee,
Amended June 22, 2001.
Jeffrey W. Shopoff, San Francisco, California, for the plaintiff-appellant.
Ronald Dean, Pacific Palisades, California, for the defendant-appellant.
Catherine A. Elin, Novato, California, for the defendant-appellee.
Argued and Submitted July 6, 2000 — San Francisco, California.
FootNotes 1. Myers' credits include the television series "Streets of San Francisco" and "Gomer Pyle."
2. It is not clear why the state court thought the Plan had to be joined to the Tise-Myers child support proceedings. Although California law requires a pension plan to be joined to a divorce proceeding, see Cal.Fam.Code § 2060, a plan need not be joined to a support proceeding, see Cal.Fam.Code § 5103(a). In any event, California courts recognize that under ERISA, a plan need not be a party to a state court domestic relations proceeding in order to be bound by a QDRO that issues from that proceeding. In re Marriage of Baker, 204 Cal.App.3d 206, 218, 251 Cal.Rptr. 126 (1988).
3. An "alternate payee" is "any spouse, former spouse, child, or other dependent of a participant who is recognized by a domestic relations order as having a right to receive all, or a portion of, the benefits payable under a plan with respect to such participant." 29 U.S.C. § 1056(d)(3)(K). The Plan argued before the district court that Tise could not be an "alternate payee" as a matter of law because she and Myers were never married. The district court rejected this argument on the grounds that the DRO was intended to benefit Tise's now-grown children when they were minors, minor children cannot represent their own legal interests, and as the children's mother, Tise was an appropriate "alternate payee." The parties have not appealed this issue.
4. In the case of any domestic relations order received by a plan —
29 U.S.C. § 1056(d)(3)(G)(i).
5. Curry relies upon In re Norfleet, 243 Ill.App.3d 925, 184 Ill.Dec. 63, 612 N.E.2d 939 (1993), for the proposition that benefits may not be assigned to an alternate payee unless a QDRO is obtained prior to the participant's death. Norfleet, however, is grounded in a "no QDRO — no interest" analysis, id. at 943, that is irreconcilable with the law of our circuit as explicated in Gendreau and Stewart, and is therefore not helpful to our analysis.
6. Whether a QDRO issued after a plan participant's retirement may affect the distribution of surviving spouse benefits pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 1055 implicates statutory provisions and policy considerations other than those here applicable. See Hopkins v. AT&T Global Info. Solutions Co., 105 F.3d 153, 156-57 (4th Cir.1997); Rivers v. Central & South West Corp., 186 F.3d 681, 683-84 (5th Cir.1999). We therefore leave to a case concerning § 1055 the determination whether, as Hopkins and Rivers determined, the plan participant's retirement cuts off a putative alternate payee's right to obtain an enforceable QDRO substituting the alternate payee for the surviving spouse with regard to statutory surviving spouse benefits.
7. Curry relies for this argument on the Fourth Circuit's decision in Hopkins v. AT&T Global Info. Solutions Co., 105 F.3d 153 (4th Cir.1997). The Fourth Circuit did indicate that at the moment when the right to a participant's plan benefits vests in a beneficiary other than the participant, they are no longer "benefits payable with respect to a participant," but become "benefits payable to a beneficiary." Id. at 156. The issue before the court in Hopkins, however, involved a statutorily-created surviving spouse annuity under 29 U.S.C. § 1055, and the Fourth Circuit's overall analysis focused closely upon the language, legislative history, and purpose of that provision. Id. Because its analysis focused narrowly on the particular problem of surviving spouse benefits under § 1055, Hopkins' ultimate holding regarding the vesting of those benefits has no direct bearing in this case.
10. For these reasons, we need not determine whether the state court properly granted the 1996 order nunc pro tunc or whether the Full Faith and Credit statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1738, would require a federal court to give full effect to the order's nunc pro tunc aspect.