Court Opinion

ID: 9646838
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:13:04.8571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:42.598041
License: Public Domain

*838CADENA, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
The holding in Ex parte Buckhanan, 626 S.W.2d 65 (Tex.App.—San Antonio 1981, no writ), should be followed.
The position taken by the majority in this case rests entirely on the theory that the decision of the Supreme Court of Texas in Ex parte Johnson, 591 S.W.2d 453 (Tex.1979), is not applicable to the facts of this case and of Buckhanan.
The attempted distinction between Johnson, on the one hand, and this case and Buckhanan, on the other, is based on what the majority opinion asserts is a distinction between the holdings in Hisquierdo v. His-quierdo, 439 U.S. 572, 99 S.Ct. 802, 59 L.Ed.2d 1 (1979), and McCarty v. McCarty, 453 U.S. 210, 101 S.Ct. 2728, 69 L.Ed.2d 589 (1981). Justice Cantu’s argument may be summarized as follows:
1. There is much confusion surrounding the term “preemption” because of the failure of the courts to recognize that there are different types of preemption.
2. The effect to be given a decision holding a state regulation invalid under the preemption doctrine depends on the type of preemption involved.
3. In Hisquierdo, the Supreme Court relied on two different types of preemption. Primary reliance was placed on the type of preemption which, according to the majority opinion, results when the federal statute in question requires, “by direct enactment, that state law be preempted and that the type of injury which the Supremacy Clause seeks to prevent was threatened by [the state law] in conflict with the [federal legislation].” The second type of preemption is said to occur when it is determined “that continued recognition of the assailed state interest threatened grave harm to clear and substantial federal interests.”
4. McCarty, unlike Hisquierdo, is based solely on the second type of preemption.
All of the assumptions which are relied on for refusing to follow Johnson are in error.
There is no confusion surrounding the term “preemption.” In McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat 316, 436, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819), Chief Justice Marshall made it clear that the “states have no power, by taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden or in any manner control the operation of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress to carry into execution the powers vested in the general government.” This conclusion, he said, is “the unavoidable consequence of that supremacy which the constitution itself has declared.” Id. It is not necessary here to determine whether McCulloch may properly be classified as a preemption case. The doctrine of preemption rests on the Supremacy Clause and Marshall’s words leave no doubt concerning the effect of such clause on state regulations which, if given effect, would “retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control, the operation of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress.”
Insofar as resolution of the problem now before us is concerned, preemption occurs when the state regulation obstructs “the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of an Act of Congress.” Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52, 67, 61 S.Ct. 399, 404, 85 L.Ed. 581 (1941). A state regulation will be held to be in such unconstitutionally obstructive position when the federal legislation is found to evidence a congressional intent to occupy the whole field or when there is a substantial conflict between the federal and state regulations. Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U.S. 132, 141, 83 S.Ct. 1210, 1216, 10 L.Ed.2d 248 (1963).
It is true that the Supreme Court often speaks in terms of federal legislation having the effect of “overriding” or “superseding” state law, and when the Court finds the preemption doctrine applicable it frequently declares that the challenged state regulation must “give way” and “become inoperative.” The choice of different terms to describe the effect of preemption, however, does not establish that there are different types of preemption. In all cases where the doctrine is found to be applicable the result is the invalidation of state law under the Supremacy Clause because of the incompatibility of state law with the feder*839al regulatory scheme. If state law is invalidated, it is certainly overriden and superseded and must give way and become inoperative.
The majority’s statement, “In the final analysis, it seems clear that the term ‘preemption’ does not always imply a prohibition and, therefore, a withholding of jurisdiction to act”, is nothing more than a contradiction in terms. The conclusion that congressional action has preempted an area always carries with it the consequential prevention of future state regulation in that area or the suspension of existing state regulation in such area.
After determining that there are different types of preemption, some of which apparently do not preempt, the majority opinion proceeds to distinguish Hisquierdo and McCarty on the basis of the type of preemption involved in each case. This distinction is crucial to the ultimate conclusion that Ex parte Johnson is not controlling here. Of course, if the conclusion that there are several types of preemption is incorrect, the attempted distinction must fail. Even if it be assumed that there are different types of preemption, the distinction must fail.
Justice Cantu correctly asserts that Hisquierdo describes the determinative test to be “whether the right as asserted conflicts with the express terms of federal law and whether its consequences sufficiently injure the objectives of the federal program to require non-recognition.” 439 U.S. at 583, 99 S.Ct. at 809. This is precisely the test applied in McCarty. The McCarty opinion, after quoting the very language relied on by Justice Cantu, states, “It is to this twofold inquiry that we now turn.” 453 U.S. at 220, 101 S.Ct. at 2735.
Although McCarty expressly adopts and applies the same test applied in Hisquierdo, the majority opinion insists that the two cases are distinguishable because McCarty, unlike Hisquierdo, concluded that “a mere conflict” between federal and state law is insufficient to invoke preemption, particularly “where the conflict is only one of words.” According to Justice Cantu, because of the McCarty conclusion that mere conflict in words is insufficient, “reliance was then had upon the second type of preemption ... to determine that continued recognition of the assailed state interest threatened grave harm to clear and substantial federal interests.” The McCarty opinion does, indeed, state that a “mere conflict in words is not sufficient.” 453 U.S. at 232, 101 S.Ct. at 2741. In Hisquierdo the Court said, “a mere conflict in words is not sufficient.” 439 U.S. at 581, 99 S.Ct. at 808. The recognition that mere conflict is insufficient, then makes McCarty like, rather than unlike, Hisquierdo. The McCarty language was lifted word for word from, and expressly attributed to, Hisquierdo. McCarty, 453 U.S. at 232, 101 S.Ct. at 2741.
It is also true that McCarty, after following the Hisquierdo conclusion that mere conflict is insufficient, required a finding that continued recognition of the state interest threatened grave harm to clear and substantial federal interests. In requiring such a finding, McCarty again, was merely following Hisquierdo. The Hisquierdo opinion, after noting that mere conflict is not sufficient, described the additional requirement as follows: “State family and property law must do ‘major damage’ to ‘clear and substantial’ federal interests before the Supremacy Clause will demand that state law be overriden.” 439 U.S. at 581, 99 S.Ct. at 808. The test applied in Hisquierdo clearly requires both “conflict” and a finding that the consequences of the asserted state interest “sufficiently injure the objectives of the federal program ...” 439 U.S. at 583, 99 S.Ct. at 809. This language was quoted, and relied on, in McCarty, 453 U.S. at 232, 101 S.Ct. at 2741. If both cases required conflict and an injury to federal interests, how can the majority opinion say that the two cases did not rely on the same type of preemption?
The majority opinion also speaks of a preemption which results “from prohibition of Congress” and a preemption which “occurs by virtue of decisional law and statutory construction.” Apparently, the theory is *840that the preemption resulting from the His-quierdo opinion did not occur by virtue of decisional law and statutory construction, but that the McCarty preemption did. Justice Cantu stresses that Hisquierdo noted that the language of the Railroad Retirement Act “positively required, by direct enactment, that the type of injury the Supremacy Clause seeks to prevent was threatened by community property interests in conflict with the Act.” Apparently, this observation is thought to compel the conclusion that the preemption in Hisquier-do resulted “from prohibition of Congress” and not from “decisional law and statutory construction.”
Presumably, the statement that the Railroad Retirement Act positively required that state community property laws be preempted refers to that portion of the Act which places retirement benefits payable under that Act beyond the reach of legal process. 45 U.S.C. § 231m. It can hardly be seriously contended that the language of § 231m “positively” requires that state community property laws be preempted. The statement in § 231 that benefits paid under the Act shall not be subject to garnishment is a singularly inept way of asserting that state community property laws must be preempted. As Mr. Justice Stewart pointed out in his dissenting opinion in Hisquierdo, § 231m does not “speak to substantive ownership interests that may or may not exist in annuities or pension payments,” and “seems to have been designed to protect the benefits from the reach of creditors.” 439 U.S. at 598-99, 99 S.Ct. at 816-17. Terms such as “garnishment” and “attachment” “govern remedies, not ownership rights, and the remedies themselves traditionally have been unavailable in an action grounded upon the theory that the property at issue ‘belongs’ to the claimant.” 439 U.S. at 599, 99 S.Ct. at 817.
It is clear that the “overriding” of state law in Hisquierdo resulted from “decisional law and statutory construction,” since the conclusion that a provision immunizing benefits from garnishment and attachment “positively” prohibits the enforcement of state law recognizing a joint ownership of the benefits can only be arrived at by resorting to the process normally called statutory construction. Stated differently, an exemption from legal process cannot be transformed into an invalidation of state community property laws except by statutory construction.
It may be argued that the Railroad Retirement Act positively required preemption of state community property laws because the Hisquierdo opinion relied solely on that Act and disregarded all other federal legislation. This argument, however, is simply false. For example, the Hisquierdo opinion expressly refers to the Social Security Act 45 U.S.C. § 501, et seq., and notes that in adopting § 462 of that Act, Congress expressed the intention that a family’s “need for support could justify garnishment [of retirement benefits], even though it deflected other federal benefits from their intended goals, but that community property claims, which are not based on need, could not do so.” 439 U.S. at 587, 99 S.Ct. at 811.
The Eastland Court of Appeals declined to follow Ex parte Johnson in a case involving nondisability military retirement benefits, using the same reasoning as that relied on by the majority here. Ex parte Welch, 633 S.W.2d 691 (Tex.App.—Eastland, 1982) (not yet reported). The Eastland Court argued that Congress had not positively required by direct enactment that state community property laws be preempted as to nondisability military retirement benefits. Both the majority opinion here and the Welch opinion gratuitously and erroneously assume that the positive requirement of preemption by “direct enactment” must be found in the very statute which establishes the retirement system. As already pointed out, Hisquierdo did not rely solely on the Railroad Retirement Act; it referred to the Social Security Act at least twice. 439 U.S. at 576, 578, 99 S.Ct. at 805, 806. The test applied in Hisquierdo is phrased in terms of conflict with “federal law” and injury to the objectives of a “federal program.”
*841The federal program which was protected against injury in McCarty is the military retirement program which is designed to provide for the retired service member and to meet the personnel management needs of the active military forces. McCarty, 453 U.S. 232, 101 S.Ct. at 2741. Certainly, all federal law regulating such program and designed to achieve the program’s objectives must be considered to be the “federal law” against which the validity of the challenged state regulation must be tested.
If the Hisquierdo decision is based on the fact that federal law placed Railroad Retirement Act Benefits beyond the reach of legal process, there is a “federal law” which has the same effect as to nondisability military retirement benefits. Section 659(a) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. § 659(a)) provides as follows:
... moneys (the entitlement to which is based upon renumeration for employment) due from, or payable by, the United States ... to any individual, including members of the armed services, shall be subject, in like manner and to the same extent as if the United States ... were a private person, to legal process brought for the enforcement, against such individual of his legal obligation to pay child support or make alimony payments.
42 U.S.C. § 659(a).
Section 662 of the Social Security Act makes it clear that the term “alimony” as used in Sec. 659(a) “does not include any payment or transfer of property ... in compliance with any community property settlement, equitable distribution of property, or other division of property between spouses or former spouses.” 42 U.S.C. § 662(c). Section 662(c) also makes it clear that Sec. 659(a) applies to military retirement benefits. 42 U.S.C. § 662(f)(2). His-quierdo recognized that the above provisions of the Social Security Act “expressly override” the anti-assignment provision of the Railroad Retirement Act. 42 U.S.C. § 231m. Through the above provisions of the Social Security Act, Congress facilitated the enforcement of claims based on spousal support but declined to do so “for community property claims.” Hisquierdo, 439 U.S. at 587, 99 S.Ct. at 811. If See. 231m of the Railroad Retirement Act, which does not mention community property law, is a positive requirement by direct enactment that state community property law be preempted, then the provisions of the Social Security Act which expressly prohibit the use of legal process to enforce community property claims, are, at the very least, as clearly a positive requirement by direct statutory enactment that state community property law be preempted.
The Social Security Act clearly and unmistakably provides that military retirement pay shall be subject to legal process “brought for the enforcement” of the retiree’s “legal obligations to provide child support or make alimony payments”, but not for the purpose of enforcing compliance “with any community property settlement, equitable distribution of property, or other division of property between spouses or former spouses.” 42 U.S.C. §§ 659(a), 662(c) and 662(f)(2). There can be no doubt that such sections of the Social Security Act are a part of the “federal law” establishing retirement benefits for railroad employees. Clearly, such sections of the Social Security Act must be considered a part of the “federal law” governing the federal military retirement “program” which state law cannot validly obstruct. The McCarty references to the Retired Serviceman’s Family Protection Plan, 10 U.S.C. §§ 1431-1446, 1976 ed., Supp. III, and the Survivor Benefit Plan, 10 U.S.C. §§ 1447-1455, 1976 ed., Supp. III, are references to “federal law” regulating the program which must be protected against obstruction by state law.
The Supreme Court, in Ridgway v. Ridgway, 454 U.S. 46, 102 S.Ct. 49, 54-55, 70 L.Ed.2d 39 (1981), pointed out that His-quierdo and McCarty followed the same approach in determining that state community property law was unacceptably obstructive of the program established by federal law. Since McCarty applied precisely the same test as did Hisquierdo, the majority’s conclusion that Hisquierdo and McCarty are somehow different must be rejected. *842Additionally, the suggested distinction between Railroad Retirement Act benefits and military retirement benefits does not exist.
Ex parte Johnson, 591 S.W.2d 453 (Tex.1979), clearly held that when a state court’s power to treat disability retirement benefits as community property has been preempted by federal legislation, a final state court decision purporting to divide such benefits cannot be given res judicata effect and the order of division cannot be enforced by contempt proceedings.1 The argument that the preemption found in Johnson somehow differs from the preemption found in McCarty cannot be accepted. The Johnson decision, like the McCarty decision, is based squarely on Hisquierdo. The Texas court relied on statutory language relative to the rights of the veteran’s dependents and on language similar to that found in the Social Security Act declaring the payments immune from legal process. Ex parte Johnson, 591 S.W.2d at 455.
Johnson shows that the majority’s reliance on the doctrine of res judicata is misplaced. According to the majority theory, the prior divorce decree in Johnson would be immune from collateral attack, since the “defense” of federal preemption could have been raised in the divorce trial. It is generally true that an erroneous conclusion reached by a court and embodied in a final judgment does not prohibit a party in a subsequent action from relying on the plea of res judicata. It is also true that a judgment “merely voidable because based upon an erroneous view of the law is not open to collateral attack.”
What happened in Johnson? At a time when the preemptive effect of federal law had not been judicially declared concerning military disability retirement benefits, a Texas court entered a judgment disposing of such benefits as community assets. This judgment was not appealed and, therefore, became a final judgment. If the judgment were merely “erroneous”, it was beyond attack. But, when the ex-spouse sought to enforce the previous judgment, the highest tribunal in Texas declared that enforcement was impossible because the federal law had preempted the Texas rules of marital property rights. Johnson unequivocally permitted a collateral attack on the prior final judgment of a Texas court. Stated bluntly, Johnson necessarily holds that a prior divorce decree rendered by a Texas court that treats as community property, benefits, that cannot be subjected to the state’s community property rules under federal law, is void insofar as the decree purports to divide the benefits or to treat them as community property. See also Ex parte Burson, 615 S.W.2d 192 (Tex.1981).
In Kalb v. Feuerstein, 308 U.S. 433, 438-39, 60 S.Ct. 343, 345-346, 84 L.Ed. 370 (1940), the Supreme Court held that judicial action taken with respect to the person or property of a debtor, who is protected by the bankruptcy law, is a nullity and vulnerable to collateral attack, despite the general principle that a court judgment bears a presumption of regularity and is not thereafter subject to collateral attack. Justice Cantu brushes Kalb aside with the comment that it involved some peculiar type of preemption which results when Congress acts in an area concerning which it has plenary power. This purported distinction is of no avail here because there can be little doubt that Congress has the plenary and exclusive power to determine the compensation which will be paid to members of the armed forces.
Here, as in Kalb, Congress, acting in an area over which it has plenary and exclusive power, has protected military retirement pay benefits from the reaches of the *843state judicial power. As in Kalb, a state court, disregarding the Congressional mantle of protection, has attempted to subject such property to the state rules regulating marital property rights. Why should not the state court’s unconstitutionally obstructive action be as vulnerable to collateral attack as such action was held to be in Kalb l
In Hoffman v. United States, 391 F.2d 195 (9th Cir.1968), a state court divorce decree ordered the husband to keep his ex-spouse as beneficiary on his government life insurance policy. On August 23, 1963, the husband changed the beneficiary and, after his death in 1964, the former wife sought to recover the insurance money. According to the court, the question before it was: “Does a state court have the power to effectively require an unwilling veteran to maintain his former wife as beneficiary on his National Service Life Insurance Policy?” Hoffman, 391 F.2d at 196. In holding that the state court lacked such power, the court said that the state divorce decree “nullifies the soldier’s choice and frustrates the deliberate purpose of Congress” and that, therefore, the divorce decree “cannot stand.” Id. Hoffman refused to accord any effect to the prior final state court divorce decree.
The last relevant pronouncement by the Supreme Court on the question of federal preemption of state community property law appears to be Ridgway v. Ridgway, 454 U.S. 46, 102 S.Ct. 49, 70 L.Ed.2d 39 (1981), which involved an attempt by a state court to embody in a divorce decree a provision requiring the serviceman to keep his children beneficiaries of his service life insurance policy. When the serviceman subsequently remarried, he ignored the state court’s order and changed the beneficiary. After his death, the first wife sought to recover the proceeds of the policy for the benefit of the children. This effort failed.
Pointing out that applicable federal law gave the serviceman the absolute right to designate beneficiaries, the Supreme Court said:
The relative importance to the State of its own law is not material when there is a conflict with a valid federal law, for the framers of our constitution provided that the federal law must prevail.... And, specifically, a state divorce decree, like other law governing the economic aspects of domestic relations, must give way to clearly conflicting enactments [citing McCarty and Hisquierdo ].
Ridgway, 454 U.S. at 55, 102 S.Ct. at 54. Whatever construction one desires to place on Ridgway, it is clear that the Supreme Court in that case refused to give anything resembling res judicata effect to the previous final state court divorce decree.
What we have in this case is simply an instance in which the state court lacked power to divest the serviceman of his interest in the retirement benefits because of federal legislation. As Chief Justice Marshall said in McCulloch v. Maryland, supra, we simply are faced with a situation in which the “States have no power ... to retard, impede, burden or in any manner control, the operation of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress ...” Absent such power, the attempt by Texas courts to impede the operation of the federal laws governing the retirement program must be considered a nullity and subject to collateral attack.
Justice Esquivel’s reliance upon Texas trust law, as was done in Ex parte Rodriguez, 636 S.W.2d 844 (Tex.App.1981), is wholly insupportable. If the trial court has jurisdiction over military retirement pay, it is not essential to make the retiree a trustee in order to enforce the court’s division of community property. If retired pay is not community property and the trial court has no jurisdiction to divide it, the trial court may not gain jurisdiction over the retired pay by the simple expedient of calling it a trust res. The trust theory is a strained effort to divest the retired person of a beneficial interest in his retired pay, contrary to the intent of Congress. This “back door” approach to the problem was categorically rejected in Ridgway, and we reject it here.
There remains only what might be called the “policy” argument advanced by Justice *844Klingeman in his dissenting opinion in Buekhanan. This argument seems to rest on the assumption that if the Texas courts had realized that retirement benefits could not be treated as community property, past divorce decrees would have ordered a different division of the admitted community assets. That is, the need to award the entire retirement benefits to the serviceman would have been “offset” by awarding additional community property to the other spouse. See Ex parte Buckhanan, 626 S.W.2d at 69.
This approach has one serious flaw. It overlooks entirely the language in Hisquier-do which recognizes that “an offsetting award ... would upset the statutory balance and impair petitioner’s economic security just as surely as would a regular deduction from the benefit check,” and that the harm resulting from such an offsetting award “might well be greater.” 439 U.S. at 588-89, 99 S.Ct. at 811-812.
We cannot, in good conscience, accept the argument that because former spouses have in the past been the recipients of awards that state courts had no power to make, such impermissible awards must be allowed to continue. No matter how appealing the “policy” argument may be, it nonetheless would have us disregard express holdings of the United States Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Texas. We simply are not at liberty to do so.

. See also In re Cobble, 592 S.W.2d 46 (Tex.Civ.App.—Tyler 1980, writ dism’d). Cobble closely resembles the case before us in that the trial court acted without the power to do so. The Tyler Court of Appeals held that a portion of a divorce decree incorporating the agreement of the parties concerning child support was enforceable by contempt only to the extent that the support provisions of the decree were authorized by the statute providing for child support. Cobble stands for the proposition that a portion of a divorce decree which goes beyond that which the court is authorized by law to order cannot be enforced by contempt. 592 S.W.2d at 49.