Marriage of Christina DeBenedetti and Morgan Ensburg

I. INTRODUCTION

Retirement accounts, such as pensions, that are governed by the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. § 1001, et seq.; (ERISA)), are generally not assignable. An exception to this rule is an assignment of all or part of a pension benefit payment pursuant to a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO). A QDRO is defined, in part, as a “ ‘domestic relations order’ ” relating “to the provision of . . . marital property rights” that creates “the existence of an alternate [retirement plan] payee.” (29 U.S.C. § 1056(d)(3)(B).) For our purposes an ex-spouse is generally the alternate payee.

In this case, the trial judge 1 assigned four of Morgan’s 2 ERISA governed retirement accounts to Christina, issuing a separate QDRO for

each. 3 The trial judge signed these domestic orders to satisfy an award made against Morgan after a marital dissolution judgment included findings that Morgan breached his fiduciary duty to Christina. The judgment compensated Christina for the money she lost resulting from that breach by ordering Morgan to reimburse Christina for her missing community property share, and for related attorney fees. The total amount the trial…