Hocker v. Hocker

936 N.E.2d 1003, 188 Ohio App. 3d 755
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 18, 2010
DocketNo. 23568
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 936 N.E.2d 1003 (Hocker v. Hocker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hocker v. Hocker, 936 N.E.2d 1003, 188 Ohio App. 3d 755 (Ohio Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

Froelich, Judge.

{¶ 1} Guy Hocker appeals from a judgment of the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Division, which clarified a final judgment and decree of divorce and ordered that all of Mr. Hocker’s pension benefits, including supplemental benefits, be divided with his former wife proportionally to the term of their marriage. For the reasons that follow, the trial court’s judgment is affirmed.

I

{¶ 2} Guy and Linda Hocker were divorced in 2001 after 26 years of marriage. Mr. Hocker worked at Delphi during much of the marriage. With respect to the division of retirement benefits, the final judgment and decree of divorce provided:

{¶ 3} “15. RETIREMENT. A Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) will issue to the Delphi Investment Security Plan (ISP) through Fidelity Investments wherein the Wife will receive one-half Qk) of the amount as of September 13, 2001, as well as any interest and accretions thereon.
{¶ 4} “Further, a second QDRO will issue to the Delphi Personal Savings Plan (PSP), also managed by Fidelity Investments, wherein the Wife will receive one-half Qk) of the value of the PSP as of September 13, 2001, as well [sic] any interest and accretions thereon.
{¶ 5} “Further, a QDRO will issue to the Plan Administrator at Delphi for the Husband’s Retirement Plan, as well as any interest and accretions thereon.
[758]*758{¶ 6} “The formula that shall be utilized in said QDROs shall be as follows: The Wife shall receive one-half ($) of the years of marriage (26 years) divided by the years of service.”

{¶ 7} The decree also provided that Mr. Hocker would receive one-half of the amount vested in Mrs. Hocker’s 401(K) plan as of September 13, 2001, and that Mr. Hocker would cooperate in Mrs. Hocker’s purchase of a life insurance policy on his life.

{¶ 8} A stipulated qualified-domestic-relations order was approved by the trial court on April 15, 2003. The QDRO provided that Mrs. Hocker (the alternate payee) would receive 50 percent of the marital portion of Mr. Hocker’s (the participant’s) “accrued benefits” under the retirement plan. However, the Delphi pension-plan administrator subsequently rejected the QDRO on the ground that the administrator could not understand the amount of benefits to be paid to Mrs. Hocker. Mrs. Hocker submitted a second QDRO, which Mr. Hocker refused to sign.

{¶ 9} In September 2004, Mrs. Hocker filed a motion for clarification of the divorce decree, particularly whether her interest in Mr. Hocker’s retirement benefits included a share of supplemental benefits, such as early retirement and survivorship benefits. The magistrate held a hearing, at which Mr. Hocker testified that he understood that Mrs. Hocker would receive one-half of his basic retirement benefits, and Mrs. Hocker testified, in essence, that half of Mr. Hocker’s supplemental benefits should have been included in her benefits. The magistrate refused to allow certain testimony from John Bosse, a financial consultant who had been hired by Mr. Hocker and who had drafted the original QDRO, as to the parties’ discussions during the divorce proceedings about Mr. Hocker’s retirement plan.

{¶ 10} The magistrate sustained Mrs. Hocker’s motion to clarify the final judgment and decree of divorce and ordered Mrs. Hocker to prepare an amended QDRO “which will specify and divide all of [Mr. Hocker’s] accrued defined pension benefits, including basic and supplemental benefits.”

{¶ 11} Mr. Hocker filed objections to the magistrate’s decision, but the trial court overruled the objections and adopted the magistrate’s decision. In April 2007, Mr. Hocker filed his first notice of appeal. Hocker v. Hocker, Montgomery App. No. 21559.

{¶ 12} In his first appeal, Mr. Hocker challenged the modification of the QDRO because the trial court had failed to reserve jurisdiction to do so, and he challenged the trial court’s refusal to allow Bosse to testify about the parties’ negotiations prior to agreeing on the terms of the final divorce decree. We agreed with his arguments in part and rejected them in part. Hocker v. Hocker, [759]*759171 Ohio App.3d 279, 2007-Ohio-1671, 870 N.E.2d 736. With respect to the clarification of the prior order, we held that “a trial court has broad discretion to clarify ambiguous language * * * by considering the intent of the parties and the equities involved.” Id. at ¶ 25, citing Gearhart v. Gearhart (Nov. 19, 1999), Montgomery App. No. 17725, 1999 WL 1043894. Thus, we concluded that the trial court had not abused its discretion in finding that the original QDRO language was ambiguous as to whether it included early retirement benefits, interim benefits, and survivor benefits and had acted within its authority to sustain the motion for clarification, to conduct hearings on the parties’ intent, and to make an equitable division of the pension. Id. at ¶ 26.

{¶ 13} We also concluded, however, that the trial court had erred in excluding Bosse’s testimony, because it was not offered to prove or disprove the validity of Mrs. Hocker’s claim. Rather, it was offered to assist the trier of fact in assessing the value of the pension and whether, equitably and intentionally, it included supplemental benefits, and to explain why a life insurance policy on Mr. Hocker’s life was proposed during the divorce negotiations. (Mr. Hocker claimed that Mrs. Hocker “forfeited” her claim to survivor benefits and early retirement subsidies in exchange for a life insurance policy he “agreed to create” for Mrs. Hocker, although Mrs. Hocker was to pay for the policy.) We affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded “for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

{¶ 14} After the matter was remanded, Mr. Hocker filed a motion to correct a clerical error, pursuant to Civ.R. 60(A). He contended that the provision in the divorce decree which provided that he would cooperate with the purchase by Mrs. Hocker of a life insurance policy on his life had been negotiated in exchange for any right of Mrs. Hocker to be designated as the beneficiary of survivorship benefits payable under the Delphi retirement plan. He sought to have the trial court correct the judgment to reflect this agreement.

{¶ 15} Mrs. Hocker filed a motion in limine to limit the testimony at a new hearing to that offered by Bosse, whose testimony Mr. Hocker had sought to offer at the prior hearing, and to exclude the testimony of Jeffrey Slyman, Mr. Hocker’s attorney in the divorce proceedings. The magistrate reviewed the record of the proceedings and heard Bosse’s testimony. The magistrate issued the requested order in limine with respect to Slyman’s testimony.

{¶ 16} After considering Bosse’s testimony, the magistrate concluded that it was not entitled to significant weight:

{¶ 17} “Mr. Bosse’s recollection of the parties’ negotiations in 2001 may be somewhat suspect. Although the divorce negotiations took place in 2001, the within hearing was six years later. The claim by Mr. Bosse that the parties agreed to divide only [Mr. Hocker’s] ‘accrued benefits’ and not his ‘total benefits’ [760]*760is not supported by the transcript of the hearing or the original QDRO prepared by Mr. Bosse one year later. The question is whether or not Mr.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
936 N.E.2d 1003, 188 Ohio App. 3d 755, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hocker-v-hocker-ohioctapp-2010.