Court Opinion

ID: 9856611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:52:04.460365+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:49.967248
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice
(dissenting).
The decisions of the United States Supreme Court in Wissner v. Wissner, 338 U.S. 655, 70 S.Ct. 398, 94 L.Ed. 424 (1950), and Free v. Bland, 369 U.S. 663, 82 S.Ct. 1089, 8 L.Ed.2d 180 (1962), are controlling in this case, in my opinion, and therefore the decision of the trial court awarding the wife an interest in the husband’s military retirement pay, claiming it to be community property, should be reversed. As long as those two decisions remain in effect, the efforts of the state courts to avoid the preemption doctrine by trying to distinguish military retirement pay from the National Service Life Insurance involved in the Wissner case, or the United States savings bond involved in Free v. Bland, supra, can only further complicate this area of the law.
If the only adverse result from these kinds of distinctions was the necessity of learning numerous exceptions to a general rule, the result in this case could perhaps be tolerated. However, as is often the case, result-oriented decisions do the further disservice of making bad law. The case of Fithian v. Fithian, 10 Cal.3d 592, 111 Cal.Rptr. 369, 517 P.2d 449 (1974), much relied upon by the majority for its conclusion here, is an example. In the Fithian case, the California Supreme Court was con*684fronted with the problem, after having concluded that the husband’s military retirement pay was community property, of what to do with the wife’s one half interest in that military retirement pay if she should predecease him. Recognizing that the wife might die first and leave her one half interest in the husband’s military retirement pay to her heirs, who might be her children but who might also be a subsequent husband who could even in fact be a draft dodger, a situation which obviously would be inconsistent with the purposes Congress had in establishing military retirement pay in the first place, the California court concluded that upon the wife’s death her interest in the husband’s retirement pay would terminate. If the husband’s military retirement pay was in fact community property, and one half of it belonged to the wife, it would be an absolute property right which would pass to the wife’s heirs like any of the other community property which the wife is awarded in the divorce. It certainly mongrelizes recognized property law concepts to say that upon her death that property right terminates in order to avoid a result which would point up the obvious inconsistencies with the congressional intent in establishing military retirement pay. Even if the ex-wife doesn’t predecease him, she might assign her interest to a bank as security and have it foreclosed, or sell it to a third person or corporation. It hardly comports with congressional intent that some bank or finance company would wind up owning one half of a serviceman’s retirement income.
The majority in this case attempt to avoid the dilemma faced by the California court in Fithian by decreeing that the husband should have to buy out the wife’s interest in the retirement pay within a reasonably short time, relying upon our recent case of Larson v. Larson, 95 Idaho 376, 509 P.2d 1297 (1973). The appellant husband is now approximately 47 years old and, depending upon which annuity table one chooses, has approximately 22 to 25 years estimated mortality. His present monthly retirement pay, according to the majority opinion, is $341.37, making an annual retirement pay of $4,096.44. Depending upon the interest rate used, the present value of that annual retirement pay for the husband’s estimated lifetime would be approximately $40,000 to $50,000 which means that the appellant husband would have to come up with approximately $16,000 to $20,000 cash to buy out the wife’s 40% interest in his retirement pay which the majority has determined to be community property. All indications from the record are that this will bankrupt the husband. This, incidentally, might be one way for the husband to avoid the effect of the majority’s judgment entirely, since the judgment in this case would probably be dischargeable in bankruptcy, but the future military retirement pay would probably not be an asset administered in the bankrupt estate.
For the foregoing reasons, and all of the reasons pointed out in the dissent of Chief Justice McQuade, the preemption rationale of the Wissner v. Wissner case and Free v. Bland apply equally to the facts of this case and the judgment of the trial court that the husband’s retirement pay should be community property should be reversed. There are other ways to give financial security to the wife, such as a disproportionate distribution of the remaining community property, and alimony. See Speer v. Quinlan, 96 Idaho 119, 525 P.2d 314 (1974).