Dunmore v. Dunmore

MAASSEN, Justice.

I. INTRODUCTION

A husband and wife divorced after 40 years of marriage. The wife appeals the superior court's decision to equally divide their marital property, which consisted primarily of retirement benefits and debt. The superior court declined to consider how the couple's Social Security benefits affected a fair distribution, believing that our case law precluded it from doing so. But we hold that although federal law prohibited any allocation of the parties' Social Security benefits, the court could consider them as evidence of the parties' financial condition in crafting…