Court Opinion

ID: 9755166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:28:35.642162+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:03.907406
License: Public Domain

David M. Glover, Judge, dissenting. I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion in this case regarding the effect of paragraph 6 of the parties’ divorce decree, which included the following provisions: 6. The parties each have retirement. The parties shall divide equally the retirement which accrued during the marriage. Said retirement shall be divided pursuant to a Qualified Domestic Relations Order. Date of marriage August 23, 1997. Date of divorce June 24, 2004. The specific property addressed in paragraph 6 was retirement accounts, and, as acknowledged in the majority opinion, the date-of-marriage and date-of-divorce recitals inserted beside this paragraph were 1) typed in a different font and 2) inserted and initialed by appellee’s attorney. However, along with appellee’s counsel, appellant’s attorney sometime thereafter signed her approval on the decree, which was then signed by the court and entered on August 30, 2004. No appeal was taken from the decree, and neither was a motion filed pursuant to Rule 60 of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure. Instead, this appeal arose from an April 25, 2006 order that was entered by the trial court following a March 2, 2006 hearing on appellee’s motion to enforce decree. The majority concludes that the trial court clearly erred in holding that appellant had no marital interest in appellee’s retirement benefits that vested after June 24, 2004, reasoning that the decree provided that the parties were to “divide equally the retirement which accrued during the marriage,” that marital property is to be divided as of the time of the divorce, and that the divorce decree did not become effective until it was entered on August 30, 2004. Accordingly, the majority interprets paragraph 6 of the divorce decree as entitling appellant to share in all of appellee’s retirement benefits that accrued prior to August 30, 2004, rejecting the June 24, 2004 date inserted into paragraph 6 by appellee, which was agreed to by both parties and approved by the trial court. I disagree. The majority characterizes the parties’ recitation of the June 24, 2004 date as error. In my opinion, however, the reasonable inference to draw from this date is that it was inserted for purposes of valuation of the retirement accounts. Arkansas Code Annotated section 9-12-315 (a) ties distribution of marital property to the time a decree is entered. The statute does not prohibit valuation of marital property at an earlier, agreed upon date, which occurred here. Appellant’s counsel confirmed in her reply brief, though not referenced by the majority opinion, her realization, albeit “after-the-fact,” that “ [i]t is now clear why Appellee’s trial counsel argued to put June 24, 2004 in the decree. . . .” The majority opinion notes that when the issue was first addressed (which was at the hearing on appellee’s motion to enforce the decree), appellee’s attorney candidly admitted that he had not disclosed to appellant the vesting date of the retirement account. The issue raised by appellant on appeal addresses the burden of disclosure. The admission of appellee’s counsel at the post-trial hearing and the issue now raised by appellant together suggest the need for a review of what relevant information was produced in the trial process. First, the appellate record before us does not include any exhibits offered by appellant at the June 24, 2004 final hearing confirming the dollar amount, accrued time, or vesting date of appellee’s retirement plan. Neither does the record disclose that appellant utilized any standard discovery techniques — depositions, interrogatories, and requests for admission and production of documents — to obtain relevent information from appellee concerning his retirement information. What the record does include are three retirement-related exhibits, all introduced at the March 2, 2006 post-divorce hearing, and only one of which was by appellant, from which this appeal originated. Significantly, on March 2, 2006, appellant first produced for consideration by the trial court some documentation of appellee’s entitlement to retirement benefits. That sole exhibit, however, was the March 31, 2003 quarterly report of appellee’s retirement account, disclosing only limited information about its value as of that date. Pittman, C.J., and Robbins, ]., join in this dissent.