CourtListener opinion 10090002

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
 FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO 
 Judge Raymond P. Moore 

Civil Action No. 1:18-cv-01342-RM-GPG 

STELA FESTINI-STEELE, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

EXXONMOBIL CORPORATION, 

Defendant. 
______________________________________________________________________________ 

 ORDER 
______________________________________________________________________________ 

This matter is before the Court on the August 14, 2019, recommendation of United States 
Magistrate Judge Gordon P. Gallagher (ECF No. 139) to deny Plaintiff's motion for judgment on 
the pleadings (ECF No. 114) on her first claim for relief. Plaintiff has filed an objection to the 
recommendation (ECF No. 140), and Defendant has filed a response to the objection (ECF 
No. 141). For the reasons below, the Court overrules Defendant's objection, accepts and adopts 
the recommendation, and denies Plaintiff's motion. The recommendation is incorporated herein 
by reference. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B); Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b). 
I. LEGAL STANDARDS 
Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(3), this Court reviews de novo any part of the 
magistrate judge's recommendation that is properly objected to. An objection is proper only if it 
is sufficiently specific "to focus the district court's attention on the factual and legal issues that 
are truly in dispute." United States v. One Parcel of Real Prop., 73 F.3d 1057, 1060 (10th Cir. 
1996). "In the absence of a timely objection, the district court may review a magistrate judge's 
report under any standard it deems appropriate." Summers v. State of Utah, 927 F.3d 1165, 1167 
(10th Cir. 1991). 
"Judgment on the pleadings is appropriate only when the moving party has clearly 
established that no material issue of fact remains to be resolved and the party is entitled to 
judgments as a matter of law." Sanders v. Mountain Am. Fed. Credit Union, 689 F.3d 1138, 
1141 (10th Cir. 2012) (quotation omitted). A motion for judgment on the pleadings is reviewed 
under the same standards as a motion to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Ward v. Utah, 
321 F.3d 1263, 1266 (10th Cir. 2003). Accordingly, the Court must assess whether the 

complaint is legally sufficient to state a claim for which relief may be granted. Brokers' Choice 
of Am., Inc. v. NBC Universal, Inc., 757 F.3d 1125, 1135-36 (10th Cir. 2014). 
II. BACKGROUND 
Plaintiff and Billy R. Steele divorced in 2014. They prepared a separation agreement 
using a form issued by the Colorado Judicial Department. (ECF No. 128-1, Separation 
Agreement.) In the life insurance section of the agreement, a box is checked that corresponds to 
this sentence: "The parties agree to the following terms relating to all life insurance accounts." 
(Id. at 3.) Below that, a box is checked that corresponds to "Other," and this sentence is written: 
"The Petitioner Billy R. Steele will carry life insurance on Co-Petitioner Stela Festini-Steele as 
beneficiary until daughter [A.I.S.] is 18 years of age." (Id. at 4.) The separation agreement was 

later incorporated into a divorce decree. Defendant, Mr. Steele's employer at the time of the 
divorce, provided life insurance as an employee benefit. 
Mr. Steele died in an auto accident in 2017. Plaintiff made a claim for the life insurance 
benefits, but Defendant informed her that she was not the beneficiary of any policies insuring the 
life of Mr. Steele. Plaintiff provided Defendant with the divorce decree and other documentation 
to support her claim. Nonetheless, Defendant denied Plaintiff's claim based on its determination 
that the separation agreement did not meet the requirements of a qualified domestic relations 
order ("QDRO"). In its letter denying the claim, Defendant stated that the separation agreement 
"does not meet QDRO requirements because it does not specify an amount of insurance to carry 
and it does not specify the name of the benefit plan." (ECF No. 125-4, Adverse Benefit 
Determination at 1.) 
Plaintiff brought an action in state court, which Defendant removed to this Court. After 
filing an amended complaint (ECF No. 105), Plaintiff filed her motion for judgment on the 

pleadings (ECF No. 114), which was referred to the magistrate judge (ECF No. 115). The 
magistrate judge agreed with Defendant that the divorce decree is not a QDRO because it fails to 
identify each plan to which it applies. Plaintiff objects to that determination. The Court reviews 
the matter de novo. 
III. ANALYSIS 
Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA"), federal law 
preempts nearly all state law claims relating to employee benefit plans. Carland v. Metro. Life 
Ins. Co., 935 F.2d 1114, 1118 (10th Cir. 1991). However, a limited exception applies to divorce 
decrees issued by state courts that meet the QDRO requirements. Id. at 1119. This exception to 
federal preemption "protect[s] spouses and dependents by allowing a state order, outside of the 

four corners of the employee benefit plan, to modify the distribution of the plan's benefits." Sun 
Life Assurance Co. v. Jackson, 877 F.3d 698, 702 (6th Cir. 2017). 
To qualify as a QDRO, an order must clearly specify 
(i) the name and last known mailing address (if any) of the participant and the 
 name and mailing address of each alternate payee covered by the order, 
(ii) the amount or percentage of the participant's benefits to be paid by the 
 plan to each such alternate payee, or the manner in which such amount or 
 percentage is to be determined, 

(iii) the number of payments or period to which such order applies, and 

(iv) each plan to which such order applies. 

29 U.S.C. § 1056(d)(3)(C). A divorce decree meeting these requirements "provides all the 
necessary information to determine the identity of a beneficiary without creating unreasonable 
administrative burdens for the plan administrator." Carland, 935 F.3d at 1120. Thus, the QDRO 
requirements "protect plan administrators by requiring the order to be clear about the identify of 
the alternate payee and the benefits to be redirected." Jackson, 877 F.3d at 702; see also Metro. 
Life Ins. Co. v. Wheaton, 42 F.3d 1080, 1084 (7th Cir. 1994) ("The purpose [of the QDRO 
requirements] is to reduce the expense of ERISA plans by sparing plan administrators the grief 
they experience when because of uncertainty concerning the identity of the beneficiary they pay 
the wrong person, or arguably the wrong person, and are sued by a rival claimant."). 
Because Defendant denied Plaintiff's claim based on its determination that the separate 
agreement "does not specify an amount of insurance to carry and does not specify the name of 
the benefit plan" (ECF No. 125-4 at 1), this case implicates the second and fourth QDRO 
requirements listed above.1 The Court agrees with Defendant that neither requirement is met and 
therefore the separation agreement is not a QDRO. 
The separation agreement states that Mr. Steele "will carry life insurance on 
Co-Petitioner Stela Festini-Steele as beneficiary." (ECF No. 128-1 at 4.) According to Plaintiff, 

1 To the extent Defendant attempts to raise additional issues in its opposition to Plaintiff's motion for judgment on 
the pleadings (ECF No. 125), these are not properly before the Court. See Spradley v. Owens-Ill. Hourly Emps. 
Welfare Benefit Plan, 686 F.3d 1135, 1140 (10th Cir. 2012) ("[T]he federal courts will consider only those 
rationales that were specifically articulated in the administrative record as the basis for denying a claim." (quotation 
omitted)); see also id. at 1040-41 ("A plan administrator may not treat the administrative process as a trial run and 
offer a post hoc rationale in district court." (quotation omitted)). 
this language means that Mr. Steele agreed to carry life insurance on himself with Plaintiff as the 
beneficiary. But Plaintiff's interpretation is not the only plausible interpretation of this language. 
To begin with, it is not entirely clear whose life is to be insured. The language does not say that 
Mr. Steele will carry life insurance on his own life. Instead, it says that he will carry life 
insurance "on" Plaintiff. Such language could mean that Mr. Steele was supposed to carry life 
insurance on Plaintiff's life with himself as the beneficiary. Although Plaintiff presents a 
plausible reading of the separation agreement, the purpose of requiring a QDRO to "clearly 
specify" the listed requirements is to avoid such uncertainty. See Hawkins v. C.I.R., 86 F.3d 982, 

991 (10th Cir. 1996). In addition, the form used by Plaintiff and Mr. Steele, which directs the 
parties to "[c]heck all that apply," contains a fill-in portion that states "[t]he Petitioner will carry 
life insurance on his/her life in the amount of $ _____ with _____ (name of spouse) as 
beneficiary . . . ." (ECF No. 128-1 at 3.) Had Plaintiff and Mr. Steele checked the corresponding 
box and used this part of the form agreement, perhaps ascertaining their intent would be a less 
formidable challenge. But in any event, "[w]hether a domestic relations order qualifies as a 
QDRO depends on the language of the order itself; the subjective intentions of the parties are not 
controlling." Hawkins, 86 F.3d at 989-90. The QDRO requirements are not optional, see id. 
at 992, and the Court finds that the language of the separation agreement fails to "clearly 
specify" two of the statutory requirements. 

First, the separation agreement does not clearly specify each plan to which it applies. 
See § 1056(d)(3)(C)(iv). No plan is identified or named in the separation agreement, and, as 
noted above, it is not entirely clear whose life is to be insured and who the intended beneficiary 
is. Plaintiff argues that Mr. Steele's account with Defendant must be included because the 
separation agreement expressly applies "to all life insurance accounts," relying heavily on 
Jackson, 877 F.3d at 704. However, the provision at issue in that case contained considerably 
more specificity and clarity than the separation agreement in this case, providing, in relevant 
part, as follows: "In order to secure the obligation of the parties to support their child during her 
minority, Father and Mother shall maintain, unencumbered, all employer-provided life insurance, 
now in existence at a reasonable cost, or later acquired at a reasonable cost, naming their minor 
child as primary beneficiary during her minority . . . ." Id. at 700. In assessing whether the 
Jacksons' divorce decree identified each plan to which it applied, the court had little trouble 
concluding that "all employer-provided life insurance" referred to the specific 

employer-provided plan under consideration. Id. at 704. But the separation agreement here uses 
much broader language and purports to apply "to all life insurance accounts" (ECF No. 128-1 
at 3), without reference to whether they are employer-provided, currently in existence, or later 
acquired. Expanding the rationale of Jackson to encompass the separation agreement in this case 
would allow Plaintiff to circumvent the QDRO requirements simply by using the inclusive term 
"all." Such a result would violate the plain meaning of § 1056(d)(3)(C), which states that a 
QDRO must "clearly specify" the four requirements listed above. Moreover, relaxing these 
requirements "would involve the courts in precisely the sort of subjective inquiry that statute was 
designed to avoid." Hawkins, 86 F.3d at 992; see id. at 993 (holding that the identical statute 
under the Internal Revenue Code "should be accorded its plain meaning, and not interpreted so 

as to allow the parties to omit the requested information whenever it is convenience or even 
perhaps logical to do so."). 
Second, the separation agreement does not clearly specify the amount or percentage of 
the participant's benefits to be paid by the plan to Plaintiff, or the manner in which such amount 
or percentage is to be determined. See § 1056(d)(3)(C)(ii). Based on the same reasoning as 
above, the Court concludes that Plaintiff cannot circumvent this requirement simply by executing 
a separation agreement that purports to memorialize the parties' agreement on "terms relating to 
all life insurance accounts." The QDRO requirements were designed to allow parties to a 
divorce decree to modify employee benefit plans under limited circumstances, without creating 
unreasonable administrative burdens for plan administrators. The intent was to allow 
distribution of plan benefits while avoiding inquiry into what the parties intended when drafting 
the divorce decree. See Hawkins, 86 F.3d at 992 ("We do not believe that Congress intended— 
without expressly saying so—that the precise [QDRO] requirements . . . could be disregarded in 
favor of conducting this type of ad hoc subjective inquiry."). To accept the separation agreement 
here as a QDRO would mean accepting a facially inadequate order on the basis that 
administrator was aware of the parties' true intentions, an approach the United States Court of 
Appeals for the Tenth Circuit expressly rejected in Hawkins. 
IV. CONCLUSION 
 Therefore, the Court OVERRULES Plaintiff's objection to the magistrate judge's 
recommendation (ECF No. 140), ACCEPTS and ADOPTS the recommendation (ECF No. 139), 
and DENIES Plaintiff's motion for judgment on the pleadings (ECF No. 114). 
 DATED this 22nd day of November, 2019. 
 BY THE COURT: 

 United States District Judge