WALTZ VS. WALTZ (DIVORCE PROPERTY & ALIMONY)

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

NRS 125.150(5) provides that on the payee spouse's remarriage 'all the payments required by the decree must cease, unless it was otherwise ordered by the court.' The decree tied the $200 monthly payment to cost-of-living adjustments in John's military pension and directed payment by military allotment, and used the term 'permanent alimony.' The court read these features, together with the evidentiary-hearing testimony (including counsel LePome's testimony and affidavit that the payment was a substitute for Mary's $217 community interest in the pension and intended to last until either party's death), as showing the payments were tied to Mary's community-property interest and intended to be permanent - satisfying the 'unless it was otherwise ordered by the court' exception. Relying on Krick v. Krick, 76 Nev. 52, 55-56, 348 P.2d 752, 754 (1960), the court held that NRS 125.150(5) cannot be used to order cessation of payments that are clearly a property settlement, even where the decree labels them alimony and does not expressly recite a property settlement. Discounting John's contradictory testimony in light of the other evidence, the court held the district court erred in construing the decree to provide terminable alimony. Reversed.

In plain language

Mary and John Waltz divorced. The divorce decree awarded John his entire military pension (earned over 20 years of service), but ordered him to pay Mary $200 per month by military allotment as 'permanent alimony,' to be increased pro rata with each cost-of-living adjustment to his military retirement. This was structured as alimony because Mary, having been married to John for fewer than ten years of his service, could not directly collect her community-property share of the pension from the military pay center. The $200 figure was negotiated in lieu of her roughly $217 monthly community interest. Mary remarried shortly after the divorce, and John stopped paying. When Mary sought to collect, the district court held that under NRS 125.150(5) alimony must cease upon the payee's remarriage, so John owed nothing after Mary remarried. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It held that the 'permanent alimony' was in substance a property settlement - Mary's community-property interest in the military pension - as shown by the decree's language (tying the payment to the pension's cost-of-living adjustments and paying it by military allotment, and using 'permanent alimony' rather than simply 'alimony') and by the testimony about the parties' intent. Under Krick v. Krick, NRS 125.150(5) cannot be used to terminate payments that are actually a property settlement, so the payments did not cease on Mary's remarriage.