Court Opinion

ID: 9640028
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:55:47.385441+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:25.321447
License: Public Domain

*606WALKER, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
The majority opinion is inapposite to 10 U.S.C.A. § 1408(c)(1). Our appellee and appellant were divorced prior to June 25, 1981 (November 4, 1976). The United States Congress said “A court may not treat retired pay as property in any proceeding to divide or partition any amount of retired pay of a member as the property of the member and the member’s spouse or former spouse if a final decree of divorce, dissolution, annulment, or legal separation (including a court ordered, ratified, or approved property settlement incident to such decree) affecting the member and the member’s spouse or former spouse (A) was issued before June 25, 1981, and (B) did not treat (or reserve jurisdiction to treat) any amount of retired pay of the member as property of the member and the member’s spouse or former spouse.” (emphasis mine).
Our trial court did not “treat” (or reserve jurisdiction to treat) the military retirement subject matter. To hold that Texas Courts do so automatically, is a fiction which flies in the face of the preemptive nature of Section 1408(c)(1). See Knowles v. Knowles, 811 S.W.2d 709 (Tex.App.—Tyler 1991, no writ). Thus, I respectfully file this dissent.