## Facts

- Jeanette Shill and Douglas Shill married in 1957; Douglas began working as an Idaho firefighter in 1958 and participated in the Idaho Firemen’s Retirement Fund.
- Under the governing retirement plan, a firefighter could withdraw only employee contributions before 20 years of service; at 20 years the pension paid 40% of average firefighter salary; at 24 years it paid 60%.
- The parties divorced in October 1977, when Douglas had about 19.5 years of service.
- The initial divorce decree treated only Douglas’s refundable pension contributions as community property and divided that amount.
- In prior appellate litigation, the court held that contingent, non-vested pension rights earned during marriage could be divisible community property and remanded to determine and divide the community interest.
- Douglas became first eligible to retire on April 14, 1978 (20 years; 40% level) but continued working; he retired on April 18, 1982 (24 years; 60% level).
- In 1985 Jeanette filed an amended complaint seeking distribution of the pension interest consistent with the earlier remand.
- On remand, the trial court valued the community interest at Douglas’s 1982 retirement benefit level and awarded Jeanette a share based on the 60% pension.
- Douglas appealed, arguing the community valuation date should be fixed at the end of the marital community and should not include post-divorce increases from additional service.

## Issues

1. Whether the community interest in a spouse’s retirement benefits must be valued as of the end of the marital community (divorce/first eligibility) rather than at the employee spouse’s later actual retirement date.
2. Whether benefit increases attributable to post-divorce service may be included in the non-employee spouse’s community share.

## Decision

- The Idaho Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s valuation method.
- The court held the community interest must be determined and valued at the termination of the community, not at the later retirement date when benefits increased.
- Post-divorce increases in the pension attributable to additional service are the employee spouse’s separate property.
- The case was remanded to recalculate Jeanette’s share using the pension value as of April 14, 1978 (the first retirement-eligibility date after divorce), excluding later enhancements.

## Legal Principles

- The marital community ends at dissolution; property acquired after dissolution is separate property.
- Retirement benefits earned during marriage can be community property even if contingent or non-vested at dissolution, but their valuation must respect the community cutoff date.
- A non-employee spouse may receive a share of the pension right earned during marriage, but not increases in benefit level attributable to the employee spouse’s post-dissolution service.
- When the employee spouse could first elect retirement shortly after dissolution, the community valuation may be tied to the benefit available at first eligibility rather than the benefit produced by later, separate-property service.

## Conclusion

The court required the community portion of the firefighter’s pension to be valued at the end of the marital community and limited the ex-wife’s award to the benefit level available at first retirement eligibility after divorce, treating later service-based increases as the ex-husband’s separate property.


Shill v. Shill, 765 P.2d 140 (Idaho 1988)