Collins v. Collins5/30/2002
ilitary pension to Mrs. Andresen.
Thereafter, Congress enacted the USFSPA "on September 8, 1982, codified in pertinent part at 10 U.S.C. ยง 1408(c)(1), effective February 1, 1983." Andresen, 317 Md. at 383. Mrs. Andresen sought to reopen her divorce on March 12, 1986, in light of the USFSPA. Although the Court of Appeals ultimately decided that there was no procedural mechanism in Maryland allowing her to reopen the case, Id., at 391, it reviewed the legislative history behind the USFSPA.
The Senate Report made the purpose of the Act clear:
The purpose of this is to place the courts in the same position they were in on June 26, 1981, the date of the McCarty decision, with respect to treatment of non-disability military retired or retainer pay. The is intended to remove the federal preemption found to exist by the United States Supreme Court and permit State and other courts of competent jurisdiction to apply pertinent state or other laws in determining whether military retired or retainer pay should be divisible. Nothing in this requires any division; it leaves that issue up to the courts applying community property, equitable distribution or other principles of marital property determination and distribution. Senate Report No. 97-502, July 22, 1982, reprinted in 1982 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News, 1555, 1596, 1611. Andresen, 317 Md. at 383-84. See also Evans v. Evans, 75 Md. App. 364, 368, 541 A.2d 648 (1988) (quoting Senator Jeremiah Denton from the same Senate Report at 1626 as saying: "Those wives who have loved and served as wives and mothers for many years deserve more than mere recognition. They are entitled to a degree of security.").
Prior to June 26, 1981, when the Supreme Court decided that military retirement or retainer pay was not divisible marital property, the decision had been left to state law. Military pensions were considered to be divisible marital property in certain states. See McCarty, 453 U.S. at 218 (reviewing a ruling by California state courts finding that the military pension was "subject to division as quasi-community property."); Hill, 291 Md. at 621 n. 4 (citing In re Marriage of Miller, 609 P.2d 1185 (Mont. 1980), vacated and remanded, Miller v. Miller, 453 U.S. 918, 101 S. Ct. 3152, 69 L. Ed. 2d 1000 (1981) (noting that Montana, an equal distribution state, found the military pension to be divisible marital property.)). See also 1982 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin. News at 1602 ("The committee notes that until June 26, 1981, a number of state courts traditionally recognized that military retired pay could be dealt with as marital property and divided between the parties."). Because the purpose of the USFSPA was to "place the courts in the same position they were in on June 26, 1981," the date's relevance is to ensure continuity with the pre-June 26, 1981, law for the period between June 26, 1981, and the passage of the USFSPA. Congress specifically overruled the Supreme Court with the intent to return to state law. " nder Maryland law, as construed in Deering v. Deering, supra, pensions generally, including military pensions, are marital property." Andresen, 317 Md. at 384.
As the Court of Appeals explained, the legislative history [of the USFSPA] reveals that Congress contemplated that divorce decrees, entered between the date of the McCarty decision and the effective date of the USFSPA, might be reopened. The previously quoted report of the Senate Committee on Armed Services stated (Senate Report No. 97-502, supra, 1599-1600):
"Former spouses divorced in the interim period between the McCarty decision and the effective date of this law will have an opportunity to return to court to have their decrees mo
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