Court Opinion

ID: 9631153
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:30:12.27806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:49.405160
License: Public Domain

ALMA WILSON, Justice,
dissenting:
I dissent from the majority’s failure to expressly recognize the probable co-existence of the right to pre-retirement disability benefits and the right to retirement benefits vested in Petitioner (husband). The majority opinion recognizes the distinction in the nature of disability benefits as a substitute for earnings and retirement benefits as savings. Yet, in remand, it directs the trial court only as to the disability benefits. It directs treatment of the disability benefits as the separate property of the husband, subject to consideration as income for purposes of alimony and child support.
This interlocutory review is from an order dividing husband’s pre-retirement disability benefits from the Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System as jointly acquired marital property. Because the disability benefits and retirement benefits arise from membership in a pension and retirement system, the entire property right should not be determined based upon pre-retirement disability benefits. Accordingly, the trial court should be directed to hear evidence and determine: (1) the value of the right to retirement benefits, if any, acquired by husband during coverture; (2) whether the payment of disability benefits extinguishes that right to retirement benefits; and, (3) if the retirement benefits are extinguished, the value of the right to disability benefits acquired by husband during coverture. The trial court should include the value of the right to retirement benefits or disability benefits, whichever is appropriate, in the jointly acquired marital estate to be equitably divided. Carpenter v. Carpenter, 657 P.2d 646 (Okla.1983) and Rice v. Rice, 762 P.2d 925 (Okla.1988).
The statutes creating the Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System support these directions to the trial court. Title 11 O.S.Supp.1989, § 49-109 states in part:
No firefighter shall accrue additional service time while receiving disability pension; provided further, that nothing herein contained shall affect the eligibility of any firefighter to apply for and receive a retirement pension after the firefighter’s normal retirement date; provided further that no firefighter shall receive retirement benefits from the System during the time the firefighter is receiving disability benefits from the System_
In my opinion, trial courts must carefully and fully scrutinize each retirement and pension system to avoid characterization of the property right by name only and to assure consistency in the judicial treatment of those rights.
I have been authorized to state that LAVENDER, J. and KAUGER, J., join in this dissent.