## Facts

- Edward J. Myers married Opal Myers in 1936; their marital community ended by legal separation in 1954 and later divorce.
- On September 1, 1963, a collectively bargained, defined benefit pension plan for Local 198 participants was established and funded solely by employer contributions.
- The plan awarded “service credits,” including retroactive “past service credits” for pre-1963 industry work; it did not maintain individual participant accounts.
- Edward retired in 1973 with credited service that included 15 years of “past service,” some corresponding to years when he had been married to Opal.
- Edward married Margaret Myers in 1973 and died in 1976.
- After Edward’s death, the plan paid joint-and-survivor benefits to Margaret as the surviving spouse and beneficiary under the plan.
- Opal asserted a claim under Louisiana community property law to a fraction of the survivor benefits based on years of labor during her marriage to Edward.
- The plan and its trustees, claiming no beneficial interest in the proceeds, filed an ERISA declaratory-judgment action to determine the proper payee(s).

## Issues

1. Whether ERISA preempted Louisiana community property law so as to bar a former spouse’s claim to pension and survivorship benefits.
2. If state law applied, whether the plan benefits (including retroactive “past service credits”) were “acquired” during the Edward–Opal marital community and therefore constituted community property.

## Decision

- The court granted judgment for the plan and Margaret Myers and rejected Opal Myers’s claim.
- The court held that the pension rights at issue were not “acquired” during the prior marital community because the relevant benefit rights arose from a plan created after that community ended and from credits conferred by the post-community plan.
- The court confirmed that survivor benefits were payable exclusively to Margaret under the plan’s survivor-benefit provisions.
- The court did not rest its decision on ERISA preemption because Opal’s claim failed on state-law characterization grounds even assuming state law applied.

## Legal Principles

- Under Louisiana community property concepts applied to these facts, a former spouse must show that the asserted pension right was acquired as a property interest during the marital community; post-community creation of the plan and post-community conferral of credits can defeat that showing.
- In a defined benefit plan without individual accounts, retroactive “past service credits” granted when a plan is established may reflect prior work but need not constitute a community asset of a prior marriage if the enforceable benefit right did not exist during the community.
- Where a plan’s terms provide survivorship benefits to the participant’s then-current spouse, and a competing community-property claim fails at the property-characterization stage, the plan may pay the full survivor benefit to the surviving spouse.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that a former spouse could not claim a share of defined-benefit survivorship payments based on prior community labor where the pension rights and retroactive service credits were conferred by a plan established after the marital community ended; survivorship benefits were properly paid solely to the decedent’s surviving spouse under the plan.


United Ass'n of Journeymen & Apprentices of Plumbing & Pipefitting Indus., Loc. 198 AFL-CIO Pension Plan v. Myers, 488 F. Supp. 704 (M.D. La. 1980)