Court Opinion

ID: 9721873
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:11:31.044082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:29.037044
License: Public Domain

LEWIS, J.
I respectfully dissent.
Recognizing that the critical issues here are already before the California Supreme Court and I have already expressed my views on most of them in some of those pending cases, I will here only briefly summarize the reasons for my inability to agree with the majority.
This judgment was final in 1979. It did not award Mrs. Castle any interest in the then nonvested pension. The parties stipulated the court could reserve jurisdiction over that issue, but of course subject matter jurisdiction cannot be conferred by stipulation if it does not exist. (Taylor v. Taylor (1923) 192 Cal. 71, 78 [218 P. 756, 51 A.L.R. 1074].) California courts thought they had jurisdiction; but as it turns out, they were wrong, and the people who had been arguing for years that the subject of military pensions was preempted from state court jurisdiction had been right all along. The United *218States Supreme Court said so in McCarty v. McCarty (1981) 453 U.S. 210 [69 L.Ed.2d 589, 101 S.Ct. 2728]. The United States Supreme Court having told us what the federal statutes meant, the discussion as to that issue is over. Their word is final and the only one that counts. The current Congress was then free to enact new legislation with different meaning, but it had no power to change the court’s decision as to the intention or effect of the acts of a previous Congress. That principle also seems fundamental. Our own court has set it out pretty clearly as to California law in Honey Springs Homeowners Assn. v. Board of Supervisors (1984) 157 Cal.App.3d 1122 [203 Cal.Rptr. 886] (with which I disagreed on other grounds): “[I]t is firmly established [that] statutory construction is a judicial function within which the ‘courts have consistently held that “declaratory or defining statutes are to be upheld ... as an exercise of the legislative power to enact a law for the future.” [Citations.]’ (People v. Cuevas (1980) 111 Cal.App.3d 189, 199 . . . .) In other words, ‘[t]he right to construe a preexisting statute belongs to the judiciary . . . .’ [Citation.] Consequently, the Legislature “‘may not revise the operation of an existing law in the form of an amendatory statute to affect past transactions.’” (People v. Cuevas, supra, . . . at p. 199, quoting Cal. Emp. Stab. Com. v. Chichester etc. Co., supra, 75 Cal.App.2d at p. 901.) .... As the court in Del Costello v. State of California (1982) 135 Cal.App.3d 887, 893, footnote 8 . . ., succinctly summarized, ‘[t]he Legislature has no authority to interpret a statute. That is a judicial task. . . .’” Whether Congress in enacting “FUSFSPA” intended to try to abrogate McCarty is irrelevant to the question of the pre-FUSFSPA jurisdiction of the California courts. It is simply beyond the power of Congress to change the meaning of the prior law once the Supreme Court has stated what the meaning was. All Congress had the power to do was enact a new law with a new meaning.
Neither FUSFSPA nor Civil Code section 5124 can give a court jurisdiction it did not have when it made its final judgment. This seems to be an unpopular point of view, but until the California Supreme Court directly decides this issue, those of us who see the emperor parading without clothes have to say so. (See for example, In re Marriage of Cox (1986) 178 Cal.App.3d 240 [223 Cal.Rptr. 655].)
If the issue of “gross” or “net” retirement pay is reached, other cases have questioned the “fairness” of Congress allowing what may be more favorable treatment to the service member. Congress certainly has the power to do so. If Congress had the power to preempt the whole, they certainly have the power to allow the states to exercise jurisdiction over slightly less than the whole. If it was not “unfair” to preempt state court jurisdiction over all military pensions, it is unclear why it is “unfair” to grant jurisdiction over the “net,” especially since a greater “unfairness” will exist as *219between service personnel and the pension benefits they will receive depending on the state in which they are divorced. Other rational reasons to give such a slight advantage to the service member may exist, not the least of which would be the fact the service member is the one who may be required to “go in harm’s way” to earn the benefits.
Finally, if the majority has correctly decided the appeal, I agree with the disposition of the cross-appeal.
The petition of appellant Husband for review by the Supreme Court was denied July 30, 1986.