Court Opinion

ID: 9844362
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:01:45.03618+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:33.509844
License: Public Domain

McDEVITT, Justice.
This is a dispute over the division of the defendant’s military retirement benefits. In reaching our decision, we are required to determine the effect of I.C. § 32-713A. The trial court divided the benefits and awarded the plaintiff thirty-nine percent (39%) of the total benefits. We reverse and remand with instructions to dismiss plaintiff’s action.
The facts are not in dispute. On September 18, 1950, the defendant enlisted in the *38United States Navy in Boise, Idaho. The defendant received his discharge on July 9, 1954. Upon being discharged, the defendant returned to Idaho and spent approximately 90 days in this state, after which the defendant moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. After working as a ticket taker in a movie theater for a short time, the defendant enlisted in the United States Air Force on January 11, 1955. While the defendant was stationed in Germany, the plaintiff, a German citizen, and defendant were married in Wiesbaden, Germany, on April 10, 1956. The plaintiff eventually accompanied her husband to his new assignment in the United States and subsequently was naturalized as a United States citizen. On November 1, 1973, while stationed in California, the defendant retired from the United States Air Force. Prior to the defendant’s retirement, the plaintiff and defendant had encountered marital difficulties. The plaintiff had refused to accompany the defendant to his new assignment in California, and remained in the state of Louisiana, the site of the defendant’s previous assignment.
The defendant filed for divorce in the state of California. The plaintiff was served with the petition for divorce in Louisiana, but did not appear in the California proceedings. On April 9, 1974, the state of California granted dissolution of the marriage by default. The defendant did not disclose to the California court the existence of a military pension and thus the military pension was omitted in that decree. The California court awarded the plaintiff custody of the parties' three children.
The present partition action was instituted by the plaintiff on December 11, 1980. The plaintiff brought an action in Idaho, the defendant’s residence, to partition the military retirement benefits. The plaintiff alleged that because the California divorce decree failed to dispose of the retirement benefits, these benefits were held as tenants-in-common and thus were subject to an accounting. After a trial on the merits of June of 1981, the trial court entered a judgment denying the plaintiff any relief on July 2,1981. The order was based upon McCarty v. McCarty, 453 U.S. 210, 101 S.Ct. 2728, 69 L.Ed.2d 589 (1981), which was issued June 26, 1981.
Persisting in her efforts to receive a portion of the defendant’s retirement benefits, on July 15,1987, the plaintiff filed a motion to modify the July 6, 1981 judgment, based upon I.C. § 32-713A. After a trial in the magistrate court, the magistrate awarded the plaintiff $62,672.27 for her share of the benefits already received by the defendant and thirty-nine percent (39%) of the sums to be received in the future by the defendant. On appeal, the district court affirmed the magistrate’s decision and the defendant appeals to this Court.
The issue we must address is whether the trial court erred in modifying the July 6, 1981 judgment by awarding the plaintiff a share of the defendant’s military retirement benefits.
In response to the McCarty decision, the United States Congress passed 10 U.S.C. § 1408, effective February 1, 1983, which then authorized state courts to divide military retirement benefits based upon state law, effectively overruling McCarty. While this statute allowed state courts to dispose of military retirement benefits, Congress limited its application to:
[A] final decree of divorce, dissolution, annulment, or legal separation issued by a court, or a court ordered, ratified, or approved property settlement incident to such decree (including a final decree modifying the terms of a previously issued decree of divorce, dissolution, annulment, or legal separation, or a court ordered, ratified, or approved property settlement incident to such previously issued decree)____
10 U.S.C. § 1408(a)(2).
The Idaho State Legislature, in order to alleviate the inequities experienced by those individuals caught between the issuance of McCarty and the effective date of 10 U.S.C. § 1408, passed I.C. § 32-713A. This statute allowed those individuals caught in the interim period to bring an action seeking a division of military retirement benefits. Idaho Code § 32-713A is the basis for the argument of the plaintiff *39to support her partition cause of action. This statute states:
32-713A. Modification of divorce decree — Effective date [Repealed effective July 1, 1988.] — 1. Community property settlements, judgments, or decrees that became final on or after June 25, 1981, and before February 1, 1983, may be modified to include a division of military retirement benefits payable on or after February 1, 1983, in a manner consistent with federal law and the law of this state as it existed before June 26,1981, and as it has existed since February 1, 1983.
2. Modification of community property settlements, judgments, or decrees under this section may be granted whether or not the property settlement, judgment, or decree expressly reserved the pension issue for further determination, omitted any reference to a military pension, or assumed in any manner, implicitly or otherwise, that a pension divisible as community property before June 25, 1981, and on or after February 1, 1983, was not, as of the date the property settlement, judgment, or decree became final, divisible community property.
3. Any proceeding brought pursuant to this section shall be brought before July 1, 1988.
4. This section shall remain in effect until July 1, 1988, and on that date it is repealed and null and void.
This Court recognized the propriety of the legislature enactment of I.C. § 32-713A in Ross v. Ross, 117 Idaho 548, 789 P.2d 1139 (1990), relying in part on R.E.W. Construction Co. v. District Court of the Third Judicial District, 88 Idaho 426, 400 P.2d 390 (1965). The first step of our analysis requires us to determine whether the plaintiff’s action is one that is covered by I.C. § 32-713A, otherwise, there is no jurisdiction to entertain the plaintiff's complaint. By the clear terms of the statute, this statute applies only to community property settlements, judgments, or decrees.
Plaintiff’s proceeding is one to modify the July 2, 1981 judgment denying a claim for an accounting in a partition action. A partition action cannot be construed as incident to the divorce decree or to a community property settlement, judgment, or decree. Idaho Code § 32-713A does not provide a basis for the plaintiff’s action. Thus, the motion to modify must be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Therefore, we reverse the decision of the trial court and we remand with instructions to deny the plaintiff’s motion to modify the July 2, 1981 decree.
Costs to appellant.
BAKES, C.J., and BOYLE, J., concur.