A Carluzzo Rochkind & Smith note: Following is an article by Virginia Lawyers Weekly. We did not handle this case, but it brings up important marital points your divorce lawyer should be familiar with. For more than 30 years our divorce lawyers in Manassas have helped clients with such matters in Prince William County, Fairfax County, Woodbridge, and throughout Northern Virginia. If you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment, please contact our law firm at (703) 361-0776.
Contract: Wife awarded 50% of benefits accrued at time of agreement
By Virginia Lawyers Weekly – 5/30/2024
Where the parties agreed in a marital separation agreement that the wife “shall have 50% of” husband’s “military retirement, when a military retirement is earned by” husband, that referred to the marital share interest that already existed at the time the agreement was executed, and not to military retirement earned because of military service after the parties’ divorce.
Background
Andrew Ryan Younkle and Suzanne Marie Schillmoeller married in 1999. After 10 years of marriage, the parties signed a marital separation agreement, or MSA, which was drafted from a basic internet template without the assistance of counsel. In the MSA, in a section labeled “Spousal Support,” the parties specified that the spousal support award from Younkle to Schillmoeller would be $0. However, in the same section was typed the statement that, “[a]lso, [Younkle] agrees that [Schillmoeller] shall have 50% of [Younkle’s] military retirement, when a military retirement is earned by [Younkle].” The MSA was incorporated into the parties’ Apr. 20, 2010, Final Decree of Divorce.
In 2020, Schillmoeller contacted the United States military to initiate the receipt of her share of the military retirement she anticipated Younkle would receive. Subsequently, Younkle filed a declaratory judgment action in the Fairfax County Circuit Court, seeking a determination that the section of the MSA “awarding [Schillmoeller] 50% of [Younkle]’s military retirement is [not enforceable since it was spousal support which] terminated by operation of law [following Schillmoeller’s 2012 remarriage].”
In the alternative, Younkle asserted that to the extent Schillmoeller was entitled to an award from his military retirement pay, such award to Schillmoeller should be limited to the value of military retirement pay earned during the marriage, and should not include military retirement pay increases earned due to advancement in rank and his active-duty service after the divorce. After the hearing, the circuit court concluded that the MSA provision “providing 50% of [Younkle]’s military retirement is spousal support; and [that] said spousal support payable to [Schillmoeller] terminated by operation of law … when [Schillmoeller] remarried ….”
The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court and awarded Schillmoeller 50 percent of Younkle’s retirement pay. It concluded that the unambiguous MSA provision, regarding Younkle’s military retirement pay, was intended as a division of marital property and was not intended as spousal support which would have terminated upon Schillmoeller’s remarriage.
Analysis
The provision in the MSA regarding military retirement pay, in context, manifestly refers to the marital share interest that already existed at the time the MSA was executed. There is no language indicating that the military retirement pay provision was referring to or intended to include military retirement earned because of Younkle’s military service after the parties’ divorce; there is no language stating that Schillmoeller is entitled to 50 percent of Younkle’s “full” or “entire” military retirement pay. Also, there is no expressed intent to entitle Schillmoeller to any non-marital share of Younkle’s military retirement pay, and no indication, within the language of the MSA, that the retired military pay provision was intended to go beyond the subject matter of the rest of the agreement, which concerned allocation of the marital assets of the couple.
The language in the military retirement pay provision of the MSA unambiguously refers to distribution of a marital asset created by Younkle’s service in the military during the marriage. There is no language in the MSA indicating otherwise; retirement benefits earned by Younkle after the date of divorce are Younkle’s separate property, which should not be included in the military retirement pay that Schillmoeller is entitled to receive.
Pursuant to the terms of the MSA, the military retirement pay that Schillmoeller is entitled to receive is 50 percent of the marital share of Younkle’s military retirement pay, based upon the military service Younkle provided during his marriage to Schillmoeller. To the extent the Court of Appeals ruled otherwise, it erred.
So ordered.
Younkle v. Schillmoeller, Record No. 230204, Apr. 11, 2024. From the Court of Appeals of Virginia. VLW 024-6-13. 5 pp.
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