Court Opinion

ID: 9430966
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:31:01.557189+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:26.517507
License: Public Domain

Justice White,
dissenting.
Title 38 U. S. C. § 3101(a) provides that “[p]ayments of benefits . . . under any law administered by the Veterans’ Administration . . . made to, or on account of, a beneficiary . . . shall not be liable to attachment, levy, or seizure by or under any legal or equitable process whatsoever, either before or after receipt by the beneficiary.” As the Court apparently recognizes, albeit grudgingly, under Wissner v. *645Wissner, 338 U. S. 655 (1950), the order that appellant pay over a portion of his veterans’ disability benefits on pain of contempt constitutes a “seizure” of the benefits.1 The plain language of § 3101(a) prohibits any seizure of veterans’ benefits, but the Court ignores that prohibition and creates an exception out of whole cloth, while seeming to recognize that there is no meritorious distinction between Wissner and this case, see ante, at 633-634.
The Court’s decision is also inconsistent with Ridgway v. Ridgway, 454 U. S. 46 (1981). In Ridgway, a state court had “attempted to limit the reach of [the anti-attachment statute concerning veterans’ life insurance benefits] on the theory that the purpose of the anti-attachment provision was to protect the policy proceeds from the claims of creditors, and that the provision has no application to minor children as*646serting equitable interests.” Id., at 60-61. The Court held, however, that “[t]his contention . . . fails to give effect to the unqualified sweep of the federal statute.” Id., at 61. The Court attempts to distinguish Ridgway by asserting that there the purpose of the statute providing life insurance policies was to benefit the veteran alone, while here the veteran’s disability benefits are meant to support the veteran and his family. In support of this distinction the Court cites (1) a statement, taken from the legislative history of a 1984 bill increasing disability benefits, that “the [Veterans’ Affairs] Committee periodically reviews the service-connected disability compensation program with a view toward assuring that the benefits authorized provide reasonable and adequate compensation for disabled veterans and their families,” S. Rep. No. 98-604, p. 24, (1984), and (2) 38 U. S. C. § 3107(a)(2), which provides for the apportionment of veterans’ benefits by the Administrator when the veteran is separated from his wife or lacks custody of his children. The legislative history of the 1984 statute plainly is not intended as a comment on the scope of § 3101(a), and even if it were it would not be controlling, since it was not made in conjunction with any amendment of that statute. The fact that the Administrator can apportion benefits for the use of a veteran’s family supports rather than undercuts appellant’s construction of § 3101(a), because it demonstrates that, to the extent that Congress intended disability pay to benefit veterans’ families, it created a mechanism for achieving that goal.2
Two other statutes confirm that Congress does not intend veterans’ disability benefits to be subject to state-court control. In 1975 and 1977, when amending the Social Security Act to provide that, notwithstanding any contrary law, federal benefits may be garnished to satisfy a child support or *647alimony obligation, see 42 U. S. C. § 659, Congress declined to extend permission to garnish veterans’ disability pay, see 42 U. S. C. § 662(f)(2). Also, when Congress passed the Uniformed Services Former Spouses’ Protection Act, Pub. L. 97-252, Tit. X (1982), following this Court’s decision in McCarty v. McCarty, 453 U. S. 210 (1981), it permitted state divorce courts to apportion military retired pay in divorce proceedings, see 10 U. S. C. §1408, but withheld such permission for veterans’ disability pay, see 10 U. S. C. § 1408(a)(4). Of course, this case does not involve direct garnishment or apportionment of veterans’ disability pay, but there is no plausible reason that Congress would have written these specific exceptions for disability pay if it contemplated that state courts would enter orders such as were entered against appellant in this case. I respectfully dissent.

 See ante, at 631-632. In Wissner, the Court stated:
“The judgment under review has a further deficiency so far as it ordered the diversion of future payments as soon as they are paid by the Government to the [named beneficiary]. At least in this respect, the very payments under the policy are to be ‘seized,’ in effect, by the judgment below. This is in flat conflict with the exemption provision contained in 38 U. S. C. § 454a, made part of this Act by 38 U. S. C. § 816: Payments to the named beneficiary ‘shall be exempt from the claims of creditors, and shall not be hable to attachment, levy, or seizure by or under any legal or equitable process whatever, either before or after receipt by the beneficiary. . . 338 U. S., at 659.
That this was “clearly an alternative holding,” ante, at 631-632, does not detract from the fact that it was a holding. It was, furthermore, an entirely reasonable holding: I cannot imagine that if state courts began using their contempt power to enforce the commercial debt obligations of veterans receiving disability pay the Court would have any difficulty finding a seizure.
Justice Scalia alone attaches significance to the fact that the order in this case does not explicitly refer to appellant’s disability pay. Ante, at 643-644. This argument elevates form over substance: the order holding appellant in willful contempt relied on the fact that he could comply with the support order by using his disability pay, see App. to Juris. Statement 7a-8a, and the plain effect of the order was to require appellant to pay over his disability pay or go to jail.

 The Court cites nothing in the record to support its concern that “to construe § 3107(a)(2) as appellant suggests could open for reconsideration a vast number of existing divorce decrees affecting disabled veterans,” ante, at 628.