- 6 - petitioner an ownership interest in Mr. Jefferies’ future retired military pay. We have no reason to question the validity of petitioner’s and Mr. Jefferies’ agreement to divide Mr. Jefferies’ future “military retirement income”. In Colorado, as elsewhere, parties to a divorce generally “are at liberty mutually to agree upon provisions * * * which the court could not impose upon them.” In re Marriage of Lamm, 682 P.2d 67, 68 (Colo. Ct. App. 1984) (upholding validity of separation agreement requiring automatic increases in child support payments according to cost of living increases, despite Colorado courts’ lack of authority to impose such an arrangement). That said, however, we are not persuaded that the separation agreement gave petitioner any ownership interest in Mr. Jefferies’ future military retirement pay. To the contrary, we believe that under Ellis v. Ellis, supra, at the time of petitioner’s separation agreement and divorce decree the future military retirement pay was not “property” in which petitioner could acquire an ownership interest. As the Colorado Supreme Court explained in In re Marriage of Balanson, 25 P.3d 28, 35 (Colo. 2001), a determination as to property division in a Colorado divorce proceeding “requires two steps: first, a court must determine whether an interest constitutes ‘property’; if so, the court must then determine whether the property is marital or separate.” The lower court’sPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011