USFSPA Issue Goes to Supreme Court

Fifty-eight military retirees from the 3,000-member Uniformed Services Former Spouses’ Protection Act (USFSPA) Litigation Support Group want military retirement pay to be excluded when dividing a couple’s assets during divorce proceedings. The issue began in 1981 when the Supreme Court ruled that military retired pay is a “personal entitlement not subject to state community property laws.” It became complicated by subsequent passage of the USFSPA, which said that states must treat military retirement as marital property, but did not explain how to divide it. Thus the law is applied in various ways in different states. This makes it unconstitutional, say the 58 plaintiffs. They unsuccessfully took their case to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District in Virginia, then to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. They have now gone to the Supreme Court, which will decide whether to hear the case.