Petitioner's Brief on the Merits - Supreme Court of Texas

The court of appeals reversed, finding the language of the divorce decree unambiguous,
6 and that the trial court’s QDROs substantively altered the divorce decree’s division
of property. Slip op. at 5-6. The court refused to read the decree in the context of
constitutional marital property rights, instead interpreting the decree language literally.
Refusing to acknowledge the constitutional bounds of divorce decrees, the court opined
that post-divorce, separate property benefits could be freely awarded to the alternate payee.
Slip op. at 7-8.
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT
The decree in this case awarded Treadway 25% of the community property interest
in the employee benefit plans if, as and when paid. Where, as here, divorce precedes
retirement and the decree contemplates division of a defined benefit plan as part of the
community estate, the appellate court’s failure to understand the marital property rights in
the plan results in an inaccurate division of community property and an unconstitutional
divestiture of Shanks’ separate property rights (and of the community property rights of any
subsequent spouse). Treadway, on the other hand, receives a windfall of post-divorce
accrued value. This Court should provide lower courts with a better understanding of the
marital property rights at issue where post-divorce division of a retirement plan is involved.
In addition, this Court should define the framework within which lower courts are to
construe divorce decrees so as to preserve constitutional marital property rights and their
underlying policies.
6 Although the court of appeals stated that Shanks agreed the decree was unambiguous, slip op. at 6, Shanks
actually argued both that is was ambiguous and unambiguous in his brief. Appellee’s Br. at 15-16.
4