Opinion ID: 2582379
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Cathleen's Retirement

Text: The trial judge divided the property evenly between the parties. This resulted in Milton having to pay Cathleen $5,999.44 in order to equalize the property division. However, while the trial court awarded Milton his retirement with a value of $346,319, it awarded Cathleen her retirement without placing a value on it. In Root v. Root , the court divided marital property that included both a nonvested pension and a vested PERS pension. [13] The court divided the marital estate without valuing either of the assets because neither party presented any evidence at trial as to the value of the benefits. [14] Although we recognized that it is the duty of the parties, not the court, to ensure that all necessary evidence is before the court in divorce proceedings and that a party who fails to present sufficient evidence may not later challenge the adequacy of evidence on appeal, we noted that where a party identifies a significant marital asset but presents no evidence as to its value, the best practice is for the trial court to direct the parties, or the delinquent party, or the party having the best access to the proof, to fill the evidentiary void. [15] In this case, the pension worksheet submitted for Cathleen's retirement account did not include evidence of present value as was performed for Milton's retirement account. Thus, if the trial court did not wish to resolve the matter by issuing a QDRO that would divide the marital portion of both pensions, and wished to award the parties their own pensions, it should have directed one of the parties to fill this evidentiary void and to provide a present-day value of Cathleen's retirement. It was error to fail to value Cathleen's account and to assign a zero value to Cathleen's retirement account.