Precision Required to Divide Retirement
Dividing retirement benefits is an area of the law that requires using precise language and following rules exactly. The Texas Supreme Court again made this clear in Holmes v. Kent, 221 S.W.3d 622 (Tex. 2007) (per curiam).
Holmes follows an all-too-familiar pattern. The former wife, Ms. McWhorter, was a schoolteacher. Her retirement benefits were through the Teacher Retirement System of Texas ("TRS"). When Ms. McWhorter retired, she designated her husband, Mr. Holmes, to receive an annuity should she predecease him.
Ms. McWhorter and Mr. Holmes later divorced. Prior to the divorce, Ms. McWhorter signed a document retracting the designation of Mr. Holmes to receive the annuity and appointing her son and his wife (the Kents) to receive the annuity instead. The divorce decree contained the usual language awarding Ms. McWhorter all her retirement benefits and divesting Mr. Holmes of any right to them. Ms. McWhorter also changed her will to pass her entire estate to her son.
When TRS received these documents, it notified Ms. McWhorter that the designation was ineffective because only one person, not two, could be awarded an annuity. Further, it told Ms. McWhorter that the language in the divorce decree did not meet TRS requirements and suggested language that would meet those requirements. However, Ms. McWhorter supplied no further documentation, and a year later, she died.
The ensuing litigation pitted the Kents against Mr. Holmes, who claimed that the annuity belonged to him because Ms. McWhorter never had changed her designation with TRS. The Texas Supreme Court agreed, noting TRS' specific requirements for changing an annuity designation and Ms. McWhorter's failure to follow those requirements.
