UPDATE: The Kentucky Supreme Court denied discretionary review and ordered this case not to be published. Hines v. Carpenter, _ S.W.3d _ (Ky. App. 2009), 2006-CA-002173-MRRead More

We posted here about the QDRO case in the United States Supreme Court (Kennedy v. Plan Adm. for DuPont Savings) and linked to the oral arguments and indirectly linked to the briefs. Now SCOTUSBLOG advises that the court has ordered an additional issue to be briefed. Just letting you know so that if the opinion...Read More

Kennedy v. Plan Adm. for DuPont Savings was heard by the United States Supreme Court yesterday. At issue is whether a divorce agreement waiving survivorship pension rights is sufficient to defeat an unchanged beneficiary designation. The 5th circuit had held that a QDRO was the only way to defeat a pension beneficiary designation, creating a...Read More

I couldn’t figure out why in the world a plan administrator recently wanted a QDRO when the alternate payee was getting nothing under the Marital Settlement Agreement. Now I do. The 5th circuit ruled a QDRO was the only permissible way to release pension rights and in the absence of a QDRO the divorced spouse...Read More

The family law bar has been abuzz about large invoices from Fidelity for processing QDROs and one lawyer says Schwab even charged for approving its own QDRO sample form. Can they do that? Apparently so according to the U.S. Department of Labor if the plan so provides. So, before forking over that fee one could...Read More

Doerr v. Doerr, __ S.W.3d. __ (Ky. App. 2008), 2006-CA-000739-MRRead More

Hibdon v. Hibdon, ___ S. W. 3d ___(Ky. App. 2007) Husband appealed from order of the Bullitt County Circuit Court (TC), confirming Domestic Relations Commissioner’s (DRC’s) report, dividing his pension plan with Ex-wife, contending that TC erred in its computation of the present value of the plan.Read More

Shown v. Shown, ___S.W.3d__ (Ky. 2007) PUBLISHED: REVERSING PANEL: SCOTT PRESIDING; MINTON, NOBLE AND SCHRODER CONCURRING; CUNNINGHAM CONCURRING IN RESULT ONLY; ABRAMSON NOT SITTING COUNTY: OHIO DATE RENDERED: 9/20/2007Read More

From The Family Law Prof Blog:Read More

BOONE V. BALLINGER___S.W.3d___(Ky. App. 2007) De facto custodian; doctrine of waiver and estoppel; Rebuttable presumption of paternity; Marital property (401k account) 2006-CA-001257 TO BE PUBLISHED: REVERSING AND REMANDING (ABRAMSON) DATE RENDERED: 5/4/2007Read More