Howell v. Howell

137 S.Ct. 1400 (2017)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

John (H) and Sandra (W) were divorced in 1991, while John was serving in the Air Force. The divorce decree treated H’s future retirement pay as community property. It awarded W “as her sole and separate property FIFTY PERCENT (50%) of H's military retirement when it begins.” In 1992 H retired from the Air Force and began to receive military retirement pay, half of which went to W. About 13 years later the Department of Veterans Affairs found that H was 20% disabled due to a service-related shoulder injury. H elected to receive disability benefits and consequently had to waive about $250 per month of the roughly $1,500 of military retirement pay he shared with W. Doing so reduced the amount of retirement pay that he and W received by about $125 per month each. W then asked the Arizona family court to enforce the original decree, in effect restoring the value of her share of H’s total retirement pay. The court held that the original divorce decree had given W a “vested” interest in the prewaiver amount of that pay without regard for the disability. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the family court’s decision. The family court simply ordered H to “reimburse” W for “reducing . . . her share” of military retirement pay. The family court simply ordered H to “reimburse” W for “reducing . . . her share” of military retirement pay. Ibid. The high court held that because H had made his waiver after, rather than before, the family court divided his military retirement pay, the decision in Mansell did not control the case, and thus federal law did not preempt the family court’s reimbursement order. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.