Court Opinion

ID: 9776489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:37:41.671106+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:39.202820
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
The Appellant urges that we erred in our decision about the right of the trial court to consider veterans’ disability benefits in dividing the parties’ community property, even though there was no actual division of those particular benefits. He bases his argument upon the decision by the United States Supreme Court in Mansell v. Mansell, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 2023, 104 L.Ed.2d 675 (1989), which was decided one day before our opinion in this case.
The Court in that opinion held that under the Uniformed Services Former Spouses’ Protection Act, which Congress enacted in response to the Court’s decision in McCarty v. McCarty, 453 U.S. 210, 101 S.Ct. 2728, 69 L.Ed.2d 589 (1981), state courts may not treat veterans’ disability benefits as property divisible upon divorce. The Court held that the Spouses Protection Act makes only disposable retirement pay divisible in a state divorce proceeding and disability benefits are not in that category. The Appellant recognizes that in this case the trial court did not divide Mr. Rothwell’s disability benefits, but urges that when the trial court made a disproportionate award of the parties’ interest in their home to the wife, the net effect was to offset their interest in that asset because of his V.A. benefits. He urges those benefits should not have been considered in dividing the parties’ community property. He seeks the same application to his V.A. disability benefits which this Court gave to military retirement pay in Madrid v. Madrid, 643 S.W.2d 186 (Tex.App. — El Paso 1982, no writ), pri- or to the Spouses Protection Act.
We find no language in the Mansell opinion comparable to that in the Hisquierdo v. Hisquierdo opinion where the court discussed at length the provision that payments shall not be anticipated. 439 U.S. 572, 588-89, 99 S.Ct. 802, 811-12, 59 L.Ed.2d 1, 15 (1979). We find no language that V.A. disability benefits shall not be anticipated in 38 U.S.C. sec. 3101 compara*892ble to that found in the Railroad Retirement Act as set forth in footnote 21 of the Hisquierdo case. We conclude that the trial court could consider V.A. disability retirement benefits which were payable to the husband in making a just and right division of the community assets, but it could not make any division of those benefits.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.