Leadroot v. Leadroot

In Leadroot v. Leadroot, 147 Md. App. 672, 810 A.2d 526 (2002), the circuit court granted a judgment of absolute divorce in 1993, which incorporated a a Domestic Relations Order ("DRO") granting the wife a marital property award of one-half of the marital portion of the husband's pension benefits. The marital portion of the husband's plan was calculated as "a fraction of the husband's full monthly benefit, the numerator of which shall be the number of months of husband's participation in the Plan from the date of the parties' marriage . . . and the denominator of which shall be the total number of months of husband's participation in the Plan." Id. at 674-75. The wife filed the order with the husband's plan in 1995, and the plan qualified it. Four years later, without the wife's knowledge, the husband transferred his interest to a separate plan that had previously been acquired, in part, during the marriage. As a result, the husband's pension benefits were significantly increased. He retired and began collecting benefits soon thereafter. When the wife learned of the transfer, she filed the Qualified Domestic Relations Order ("QDRO") with the administrator of husband's second plan. She was informed that the QDRO would not be accepted unless it was separated from the parties' judgment of absolute divorce. Pursuant to the wife's motion, the circuit court issued a separate order in 2001, effectively incorporating the terms of the parties' first QDRO. The husband did not challenge the language of the 2001 QDRO or claim that it should be altered to reflect his repurchase of the four years of benefits that had been cashed in during the marriage. Six months later, the husband filed a motion to alter or amend the 2001 QDRO on the grounds that "'the original divorce decree and QDRO had an error as to the marital portion of the retirement benefits which are owing and due' wife." Id. at 677. Because he had cashed in four years of retirement during his marriage and had repurchased those benefits with non-marital funds subsequent to the divorce, the husband claimed the repurchased benefits could not be considered marital property. The circuit court agreed and again amended the QDRO on the grounds of mutual mistake so that the four years of redeemed benefits were not considered part of the marital fraction of husband's total benefits. Claiming that the court was without authority to amend a QDRO eight years after its issuance, the wife filed a motion to alter or amend the judgment, which was denied. Id. at 678-79. On appeal, the Court initially determined that the circuit court's modifications to the QDRO were clearly revisions as opposed to clarifications. The Leadroot Court stated: Regardless of what the husband chooses to call it, the circuit court did in fact revise the fraction used to compute the marital portion of the husband's pension benefits. It did so to correct what it believed to be a "mutual mistake by the parties." A clarification does not modify; it illuminates. And the circuit court, here, was engaged in more than simply illuminating the fraction at issue; it significantly altered that fraction so that it conformed with what the circuit court believed to be the parties' expectations. No distinction was made between redeemed and unredeemed months in computing the marital portion of the husband's pension benefits in 1993, when the QDRO was first issued, or in 2001, when it was re-issued as a separate order, after the husband repurchased his four years of service. Nor can we do so now without revising the parties' QDRO. To now qualify a term, which was left unqualified both in 1993 and in 2001, plainly constitutes a "revision." Id. at 680. Considering whether the circuit court retained jurisdiction to revise the QDRO, the Leadroot Court noted that, under Maryland Rule 2-535, after thirty days elapse from the entry of a judgment, the circuit court lacks authority to revise the judgment absent fraud, mistake, or irregularity. Id. at 682. Finding no fraud, procedural irregularity, or mistake (jurisdictional error), the Leadroot Court held that the circuit court lacked jurisdiction to revise the QDRO eight years after it had originally been entered. Id. at 682-84.