Padgett

INTRODUCTION

Donna Little, the widow of Robert Padgett and the personal representative of his estate, appeals the trial court’s entry of a final qualified domestic relations order (QDRO) enforcing the interest of Robert’s former spouse, Beverly Padgett, in Robert’s pension plan, following the court’s nunc pro tunc entry of an order dividing Robert’s pension plan survivor’s benefit as a community asset in their 1988 dissolution. 1

Donna contends that surviving spouse benefits irrevocably vested in her at Robert’s death. She further contends the antialienation provision of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ( 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq. 2 ; ERISA) prevented the court from ordering the pension plan to pay part of the survivor’s benefit to Beverly where Beverly took no steps to inform the pension plan of her community property claim until after Robert died, before his retirement and while married to Donna.

We shall conclude that, where the plan participant dies or retires before the former spouse secures an order awarding that spouse any interest in the pension plan, a domestic relations order entered before the plan participant’s death that does not award…