Tise

This interpleader action requires us to interpret the scope of the Qualified Domestic Relations Order (“QDRO”) provisions of ERISA. Yvonne Curry, the designated beneficiary of Charles Myers’ ERISA pension plan, appeals the district court’s summary judgment distributing the bulk of Myers’ plan proceeds to the mother of his children, Suzanne Tise. The pension plan’s trustees, for their part, appeal the district court’s order awarding them $3,000 in attorneys’ fees for their expenses incurred as interpleader plaintiff. We affirm the district court in both respects, although, on the merits, on a different legal analysis than the one adopted by the district court,

I. Background

Myers, an independent television and film director, was a member of the Directors Guild and a participant in its ERISA-governed pension plan, the Directors Guild of Ameriea-Producer Pension Benefits Plan (“the Plan”). 1 Before his death in 1995 three parties had emerged to assert competing claims on the proceeds of his pension plan: Curry, the designated beneficiary, with whom Myers was living at the time of his death; Tise, who had long ago obtained a state-court child support order; and the Internal Revenue…