Oddino

Under provisions of the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ( 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq.; hereafter ERISA), private retirement plans may, pursuant to a state court’s domestic relations order, pay a portion of an employee participant’s retirement benefits directly to the employee’s former spouse or dependents, if and only if the state court order meets certain specifications. Such an order is a “qualified domestic relations order” (hereafter a QDRO). ( 29 U.S.C. § 1056 (d)(3).)

In this case, we address two questions relating to ERISA and the division of private retirement benefits in a marital dissolution action. First, do the California courts have subject matter jurisdiction to decide whether a superior court’s order assigning retirement benefits to the nonemployee spouse is a QDRO? Our answer is yes: State and federal courts have concurrent jurisdiction over that question under section 1132(e)(1). Second, does an order qualify as a QDRO if it requires the retirement plan to pay the nonemployee spouse a portion of the employee spouse’s early retirement benefits without any actuarial reduction, where the employee spouse is eligible for such unreduced…