Opinion ID: 4535852
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Divorce Judgment and COAP

Text: [¶2] Pamela and Mark were married in 1976. On July 26, 2006, Pamela filed a complaint for divorce against Mark.2 The court (R. Murray, J.) entered a final divorce judgment on October 17, 2007, which stated, in relevant part, that [Mark] is the owner of pension/retirement plans through the United States Postal Service. The court finds that said pension/retirement accounts are marital property and orders that said pension/retirement accounts be divided equally between the parties. The Court further orders that the necessary [COAP] shall be prepared by [Pamela’s] counsel and shall be filed with the Court and forwarded to the Administrator of said pension/retirement accounts. [Pamela] shall cease to have any survivor benefits from the aforesaid account held by [Mark] upon entry of this judgment. these technical differences and in order to avoid further confusion, we use the term “COAP” throughout this opinion when discussing what the parties and the court refer to as a “QDRO.” 2During the pendency of the divorce proceedings, Mark reached a settlement agreement with the United States Postal Service regarding a prior, work-related personnel dispute. As part of the agreement, Mark had agreed to retire at the age of fifty-five. However, before the court entered a final divorce judgment and before Mark retired at age fifty-five, Mark became qualified for disability and began receiving disability retirement benefits from the federal Office of Personnel Management in January 2008. 3 On May 14, 2009, the court entered a COAP, which directed the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to pay directly to Pamela “an amount equal to [f]ifty [p]ercent . . . of the [m]arital [p]ortion” of Mark’s retirement benefits “determined as of [Mark’s] date of retirement.” Section 1(e), the provision of the COAP at issue, states that the order “is not intended to award to [Pamela] any portion of [Mark's] disability benefits. [Mark] is required to retire at age 62.” [¶3] More than three years later, on July 6, 2012, Pamela filed motions for relief from judgment and to enforce the divorce judgment and COAP, arguing that Mark’s qualification for disability payments had prevented her from receiving any of his retirement benefits. The court (Jordan, J.) denied Pamela’s motions on December 3, 2012, finding that the COAP did not change the language in the divorce judgment dividing each party’s retirement benefits or “require that either party receive any disability benefits received by the other prior to the retirement plans becoming effective.” We affirmed the judgment on appeal. See Dobbins v. Dobbins, Mem-13-111 (Nov. 5, 2013). [¶4] Following the 2013 appeal, Mark remained on disability until September 23, 2014, when the Office of Personnel Management determined 4 that he was no longer disabled. Later, in May 2016, Mark was “reinstated and reemployed” by the Postal Service to a position in Virginia.