Court Opinion

ID: 9383516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-30 16:11:06.260741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:45.784808
License: Public Domain

J-S42043-22

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

    MATTHEW G. MORRISON                        :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                       Appellant               :
                                               :
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
    HOLLY S. MORRISON                          :   No. 806 WDA 2022

                  Appeal from the Order Entered June 28, 2022
     In the Court of Common Pleas of Westmoreland County Civil Division at
                            No(s): 1388 of 2012-D

BEFORE:      BOWES, J., OLSON, J., and COLINS, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY COLINS, J.:                              FILED: MARCH 30, 2023

        Appellant Matthew G. Morrison (Husband) appeals from the June 28,

2022 order of the Court of Common Pleas of Westmoreland County (trial court)

granting the motion of Holly S. Morrison (Wife) to enforce a marital settlement

agreement. For the reasons set forth below, we vacate the trial court’s order

in part and remand for further proceedings.

        Husband and Wife were married on May 20, 1995 and separated on

February 4, 2012.        Throughout the marriage, Husband was employed by

Wilkinsburg Police Department. On September 11, 2014, Husband and Wife

entered into a marital settlement agreement (the Marital Settlement

Agreement) and a divorce decree was issued on November 7, 2014.            The

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*   Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
J-S42043-22

Marital Settlement Agreement provided the following with respect to pension

and retirement benefits:

      Wife shall receive 40% of the marital portion of Husband’s
      Municipal Police Pension fund valued at the date of
      separation. It is acknowledged that Husband began his
      employment with the Wilkinsburg Police Department on April 12,
      1994, the parties married on May 20, 1995 and separated on
      February 4, 2012. It is also acknowledged that the parties shall
      utilize the January 1, 2012 statement from the Borough of
      Wilkinsburg which sets forth the estimated normal
      retirement benefit of $3,450.02 per month as the value of
      the pension plan for valuation purposes. A Qualified Domestic
      Relations Order shall be prepared to effectuate the transfer to
      Wife. Other than this transfer, each party shall retain any
      and all right, title and interest in his/her own employee
      benefit retirement plans, pensions, individual retirement
      accounts, profit sharing plans, or employee stock option
      plans free from any claim of the other party. Wife’s counsel
      shall be responsible for preparation of said Qualified Domestic
      Relations Order. It is acknowledged, however, that the Municipal
      Police Pension Fund could become bankrupt and no funds would
      be available. If so, neither Husband nor Wife shall receive any
      benefits. If said Fund is reduced by a %, Husband's and Wife's
      share shall be reduced by the same percentage.

Marital Settlement Agreement ¶6 (emphasis added).

      On November 20, 2019, Husband filed an application for retirement

benefits with the Borough of Wilkinsburg Police Pension Plan (the Plan) seeking

disability retirement benefits of $3,249.81 per month as of December 1, 2019.

N.T. at 15-16; Application for Retirement Benefits. On December 4, 2019, the

Plan authorized payment of pension benefits of $3,249.81 per month to

Husband, beginning January 1, 2020 and retroactive to December 1, 2019,

describing the type of retirement benefit being paid as “Disabled.” N.T. at 14-

15; 12/4/19 Pension Plan Authorization. Husband was 52 years old at the

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time that he applied for and was found qualified for these benefits. 12/4/19

Pension Plan Authorization. No Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO)

had been prepared and Husband did not provide the Marital Settlement

Agreement to his employer or to the Plan. N.T. at 6, 19-20. The Plan paid

the full monthly $3,249.81 benefits to Husband. Id. at 18-19; Pension Plan

Payment Deposit Confirmations.

      On March 28, 2022, Wife filed a motion to enforce the Marital Settlement

Agreement alleging that she had recently learned that Husband was retired

and receiving pension benefits and seeking her 40% of the marital portion of

the benefits that Husband was receiving. The trial court held an evidentiary

hearing on June 21, 2022, at which Wife appeared, represented by counsel

and Husband appeared pro se.       At this hearing, both Wife and Husband

testified and Wife introduced documents concerning the benefits that Husband

was receiving from the Plan, including his application for benefits, the Plan’s

December 4, 2019 authorization of his benefits, and deposit confirmations

showing the benefit payments.

      At this hearing, Husband admitted that he filed an application for

retirement benefits seeking disability retirement benefits of $3,249.81 per

month as of December 1, 2019, that the Plan authorized payment of those

benefits, and that he had received and was continuing to receive those

$3,249.81 monthly in disability retirement benefits. N.T. at 11-12, 14-16, 18-

19. Husband testified that he believed that the pension payments that he was

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receiving were disability compensation, not retirement benefits, because he

was receiving them due to his inability to work, but admitted that he did not

dispute that Wife was entitled to the share of those payments provided by the

Marital Settlement Agreement from September 2022 on after he had reached

normal retirement age. Id. at 21-22, 27-28.

      The Plan’s December 4, 2019 authorization of benefits states that

December 1, 2019 is Husband’s “Retirement Date.”         12/4/19 Pension Plan

Authorization.   The deposit confirmations that were introduced in evidence

state that the payments are from the Wilkinsburg Police Pension Plan and list

“disability” as the description of the payments. Pension Plan Payment Deposit

Confirmations.    Neither Husband nor Wife introduced the pension plan

document or called any witness from the Plan to explain the nature of the

benefits that Husband was receiving or the effect of the disability retirement

on other retirement benefits under the Plan. A letter from a Plan consultant,

introduced in evidence by Wife, stated that

      the plan provides that disability benefits are payable until the
      earliest of the death of the participant or attainment of normal
      retirement age. Thereafter the participant shall receive a Normal
      Retirement Benefit under the terms of the plan.

Feaster Pension Consulting, Inc. 11/22/19 Letter. No evidence was introduced

that showed what the amount of Husband’s “Normal Retirement Benefit”

would be after he had received disability pension benefits or that it would be

unaffected by the fact that he retired early under disability retirement.

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       On June 28, 2022, the trial court entered an order directing 1) that a

QDRO be prepared providing that Wife is to receive 40% of the marital portion

of the payments that Husband receives from the Plan; 2) that Husband pay

Wife $26,252.54, representing 40% of the marital portion of the $3,249.81

monthly payments that Husband received through the end of June 2022; and

3) that Wife receive $864.84 per month, representing 40% of the marital

portion of Husband’s $3,249.81 monthly payments from July 2022 until the

QDRO is in force.       Trial Court Order, 6/28/22; Trial Court Opinion at 3-4.

Husband retained counsel and timely appealed.

       We may reverse an order enforcing a marital settlement agreement only

where the court has committed an abuse of discretion or an error of law.

Rosiecki v. Rosiecki, 231 A.3d 928, 933 (Pa. Super. 2020); Cioffi v. Cioffi,

885 A.2d 45, 48 (Pa. Super. 2005). Husband argues that the trial court erred

in holding that Wife is entitled to a percentage of the payments that he

received from the Plan prior to September 2022 because the payments prior

to that date are disability payments to which Wife has no rights under the

Marital Settlement Agreement.1

____________________________________________

1 Husband sets forth this single question as nine separate issues in his
statement of questions, but treats it as one issue in the argument section of
his brief. Because Husband’s purported separate issues are all portions of or
restatements of the above-described single issue, we treat them as one issue,
as Husband does in his argument.

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      A pure disability benefit that is completely separate from a spouse’s

retirement pension rights is not a marital asset subject to equitable

distribution in a divorce. Cioffi, 885 A.2d at 49; Ciliberti v. Ciliberti, 542

A.2d 580, 582 (Pa. Super. 1988). A marital settlement agreement that gives

a spouse a right to a share of the other spouse’s pension interest therefore

does not apply to disability pension payments paid as result of a subsequent

disability if it is shown that the disability payments do not eliminate or reduce

the retirement benefits that are subject to the marital settlement agreement.

Cioffi, 885 A.2d at 49-50.

      In contrast, a disability pension that is paid in lieu of a retirement

pension to which the recipient would otherwise be entitled or reduces the

amount that will be paid at retirement age constitutes a retirement pension

that is subject to equitable distribution. Hayward v. Hayward, 630 A.2d

1275, 1276-77 (Pa. Super. 1993).            Accordingly, a marital settlement

agreement that gives a spouse a right to a share of the other spouse’s pension

applies to a disability pension that substitutes for or reduces the retirement

benefits that would otherwise be paid and gives the spouse that share of the

disability pension payments.

      Here, the Marital Settlement Agreement gave Wife the right to receive

40% of the marital portion of Husband’s pension under the Plan. Marital

Settlement Agreement ¶6. Wife showed that Husband was receiving pension

benefits from the Plan. Unless the pension payments were purely disability

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payments that did not adversely affect Husband’s retirement pension, Wife is

therefore entitled to 40% of the marital portion of those pension payments.

      The record, however, is inadequate to determine the critical fact of

whether the disability pension reduced Husband’s retirement pension.

Contrary to Husband’s assertions, the record does not show that his

retirement pension benefits are unaffected by his disability pension.

Documents introduced at the hearing did reference a disability retirement

benefit or disability pension benefit separate from the “Normal Retirement

Benefit” and stated that Husband’s “Normal Retirement Date” was September

1, 2022.       1/1/12 Plan Pension Benefit Statement; 12/4/19 Pension Plan

Authorization; Feaster Pension Consulting, Inc. 11/22/19 Letter. One of these

documents further states that the disability pension benefits terminate when

the recipient reaches normal retirement age and from that date on he receives

a Normal Retirement Benefit.      Feaster Pension Consulting, Inc. 11/22/19

Letter at 2.

      But none of these documents sets forth what the Normal Retirement

Benefit is when early pension payments have been taken under disability

retirement and there was some evidence those disability pension payments

reduced the retirement benefit.    Husband testified that the $3,450.02 per

month, the amount of Husband’s pension that was subject to the Marital

Settlement Agreement, was “the amount that would have been received” if he

“were to have gone or retired at that date and time” when he reached

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retirement age. N.T. at 13-14. Moreover, when Wife argued at the hearing

that the disability pension permanently reduced the monthly benefit that was

subject to her share under the Marital Settlement Agreement to $3,249.81

per month, Husband did not dispute that the benefit when he reached his

normal retirement age in 2022 would be reduced and argued only that the

payments did not become retirement payments until September 1, 2022 and

that he did not have a choice as to whether to take the benefits prior to

retirement age. Id. at 21-29.

       The documents to which Husband points as showing that his retirement

pension payments are undiminished, the pension plan document, a September

28, 2022 Plan authorization converting Husband’s disability retirement

benefits to normal retirement benefits, and a September 28, 2022 letter, were

not introduced in evidence at the hearing or submitted to the trial court and

are not in the certified record in this case.2 These documents therefore cannot

be considered by this Court. Commonwealth v. Young, 317 A.2d 258, 264-

65 (Pa. 1974); PHH Mortgage Corp. v. Powell, 100 A.3d 611, 614 (Pa.

Super. 2014); In re J.C., 5 A.3d 284, 288 (Pa. Super. 2010). Because the

record does not show that the retirement benefits subject to the Marital

Settlement Agreement were unaffected by his disability retirement and early

____________________________________________

2Indeed, the latter two documents were not even in existence when this case
was pending before the trial court, as they are dated two months after
Husband filed this appeal.

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receipt of pension benefits, this case is distinguishable from Cioffi, where the

record was clear that the disability pension had no effect on the period or

amount of pension benefits that the husband would receive when he reached

retirement age. 885 A.2d at 50.

      We nonetheless conclude that is necessary for the trial court to receive

further evidence due to the absence of evidence in the record on the critical

issue which determines whether the disability pension payments are subject

to the Marital Settlement Agreement.        The deficiency in the record is

substantially a result of Husband’s failure to produce evidence to which he had

greater access, and his testimony and failure to dispute that the disability

retirement reduced the retirement benefit payments contributed to the trial

court’s decision. However, vacating the order for the trial court to take and

consider additional evidence which can clearly resolve the issue is appropriate

given the continuing obligation imposed by the trial court’s order, the terms

of the order, and the fact that subsequent events have occurred that may

have affected the correctness of the trial court’s ruling. Because the order

requires payment to Wife of “40% of the marital portion of payments Husband

receives from the Wilkinsburg Police Pension fund” in the future, Trial Court

Order, 6/28/22, ¶1, not of 40% of the marital share of $3,249.81 per month,

affirming the order in its entirety, without permitting Husband to demonstrate

that there is in fact no reduction of the retirement benefits, would create the

possibility of a double recovery for Wife of both the full amount of the

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retirement pension benefits to which she is entitled under the Marital

Settlement Agreement plus a share of benefits that she could receive only if

the disability retirement had deprived her of those full retirement pension

benefits.

      We therefore vacate paragraphs 2 and 3 of the trial court’s order and

vacate paragraph 1 of the order to the extent that it applies to benefit

payments prior to September 1, 2022. We remand this case to the trial court

to permit the introduction of evidence concerning the monthly amount of the

Normal Retirement Benefit to which Husband is entitled and which he is now

receiving and for further determination, based on such evidence, whether

Husband’s disability pension benefits reduced his Normal Retirement Benefit

and are therefore also pension benefits that are subject to the Marital

Settlement Agreement. Because there is no dispute that the payments that

Husband has received and is receiving from the Plan since September 1, 2022

are retirement benefits, Wife’s right to 40% of the marital share of those

payments will not be affected by such further evidence. We accordingly affirm

paragraph 1 of the trial court’s order as limited to payments on or after

September 1, 2022.

      Order affirmed in part and vacated in part. Case remanded for further

proceedings. Jurisdiction relinquished.

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Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 3/30/2023

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