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CourtListener opinion 11117065

Date unknown · US

Extracted case name
pending
Extracted reporter citation
189 P.3d 1056
Docket / number
pending
QDRO relevance 5/5Retirement relevance 5/5Family-law relevance 5/5gold label pending
Research-use warning: This page contains machine-draft public annotations generated from public opinion text. The headnote is not Willie-approved gold-label work product and is not legal advice. Verify the full opinion and current law before relying on it.

Machine-draft headnote

Machine-draft public headnote: CourtListener opinion 11117065 is included in the LexyCorpus QDRO sample set as a public CourtListener opinion with relevance to pension / defined benefit issues. The current annotation is conservative: it identifies source provenance, relevance signals, and evidence quotes for attorney/agent retrieval. It is not a Willie-approved legal headnote yet.

Retrieval annotation

Draft retrieval summary: this opinion has QDRO relevance score 5/5, retirement-division score 5/5, and family-law score 5/5. Use the quoted text and full opinion below before relying on the case.

Category: pension / defined benefit issues

Evidence quotes

QDRO

tation Jennifer Sandvik and Ian Frazier married in 1999 and separated in 2020. In 2022 the parties reached a settlement agreement. They agreed that the marital portion of Frazier's Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC) Pension Plan would be divided equally by a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) with 50% survivorship to Sandvik.1 After reaching this agreement, the parties began working with the ARRC retirement plan administrators to fashion a suitable QDRO. This is where problems arose, because the plan's terms could not accommodate the parties' agreement as it related to the survivor benefits. The plan only allowed for three survivor-bene

retirement benefits

the marital portion of Frazier's Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC) Pension Plan would be divided equally by a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) with 50% survivorship to Sandvik.1 After reaching this agreement, the parties began working with the ARRC retirement plan administrators to fashion a suitable QDRO. This is where problems arose, because the plan's terms could not accommodate the parties' agreement as it related to the survivor benefits. The plan only allowed for three survivor-benefits options. The first was to name no survivor beneficiary. Neither party wanted this. The second was to treat Sandvik as Frazier

pension

nchorage, for Appellee Ian Frazier. Before: Carney, Borghesan, Henderson, and Pate, Justices [Maassen, Chief Justice, not participating]. HENDERSON, Justice. INTRODUCTION Divorcing spouses agreed to equally divide the marital portion of the husband's pension plan and the associated survivor benefits. But the plan's terms prevented the parties from dividing the survivor benefits as they had agreed. The parties thereafter submitted the issue to the superior court. The husband offered to purchase life insurance in the event that the court selected an option under the plan that had the potential to divest the wife

alternate payee

agreed to divide the marital portion of the plan equally 2 This interest would be "a share of each monthly preretirement death benefit payment, determined by multiplying the monthly payment by a fraction, the numerator of which is the number of months the Alternate Payee was married to the Participant during which the Participant accrued service credit and the denominator of which is the number of months of credited service accrued by the Participant at death." -3- 7782 by QDRO "with a 50% survivorship to [Sandvik]." Both parties also recognized that this was not possible under the terms of the plan. Frazier maintained

Source and provenance

Source type
courtlistener_qdro_opinion_full_text
Permissions posture
public
Generated status
machine draft public v0
Review status
gold label pending
Jurisdiction metadata
US
Deterministic extraction
reporter: 189 P.3d 1056
Generated at
May 14, 2026

Related public corpus pages

Deterministic links based on shared title/citation terms and QDRO / retirement / family-law retrieval scores.

Clean opinion text

Notice: This opinion is subject to correction before publication in the PACIFIC REPORTER.
 Readers are requested to bring errors to the attention of the Clerk of the Appellate Courts,
 303 K Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501, phone (907) 264-0608, fax (907) 264-0878, email
 corrections@akcourts.gov.

 THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ALASKA

 JENNIFER X.L. SANDVIK, )
 ) Supreme Court No. S-18852
 Appellant, )
 ) Superior Court No. 3AN-21-04788 CI
 v. )
 ) OPINION
 IAN FRAZIER, )
 ) No. 7782 – August 8, 2025
 Appellee. )
 )

 Appeal from the Superior Court of the State of Alaska, Third
 Judicial District, Anchorage, Thomas A. Matthews, Judge.

 Appearances: Justin Eschbacher, Eschbacher and
 Eschbacher, P.C., Anchorage, for Appellant Jennifer X.L.
 Sandvik. Darryl L. Thompson, P.C., Anchorage, for
 Appellee Ian Frazier.

 Before: Carney, Borghesan, Henderson, and Pate, Justices
 [Maassen, Chief Justice, not participating].

 HENDERSON, Justice.

 INTRODUCTION
 Divorcing spouses agreed to equally divide the marital portion of the
husband's pension plan and the associated survivor benefits. But the plan's terms
prevented the parties from dividing the survivor benefits as they had agreed. The parties
thereafter submitted the issue to the superior court. The husband offered to purchase
life insurance in the event that the court selected an option under the plan that had the
 potential to divest the wife of her benefits before her death. The superior court selected
this option, but did not require the husband to purchase life insurance.
 The wife appeals, arguing that the superior court erred by failing to ensure
that she received survivor benefits for the rest of her life. Because the superior court
did not explain why it did not require the husband to purchase life insurance, we vacate
the superior court's order and remand for the court to reconsider the life insurance offer
and explain its decision.
 FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
 A. The Parties' Settlement Agreement And Problems With
 Implementation
 Jennifer Sandvik and Ian Frazier married in 1999 and separated in 2020.
In 2022 the parties reached a settlement agreement. They agreed that the marital portion
of Frazier's Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC) Pension Plan would be divided
equally by a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) with 50% survivorship to
Sandvik.1
 After reaching this agreement, the parties began working with the ARRC
retirement plan administrators to fashion a suitable QDRO. This is where problems
arose, because the plan's terms could not accommodate the parties' agreement as it
related to the survivor benefits.
 The plan only allowed for three survivor-benefits options. The first was
to name no survivor beneficiary. Neither party wanted this. The second was to treat
Sandvik as Frazier's surviving spouse. This would entitle her to 100% of the survivor
benefits, including benefits that accrued before, during, and even after the marriage.
The third option would entitle Sandvik to a conditional survivor benefit equal to her

 1
 Frazier began working at ARRC in 1991.

 -2- 7782
 marital interest.2 The benefit would be conditional because if Frazier remarried, then
Sandvik's benefits would "cease upon the earlier of [Sandvik's] date of death or the
date the surviving spouse's benefit ceases." In effect, this meant that Sandvik's survivor
benefits could cease if Frazier remarried and named his new spouse as a joint survivor
beneficiary, and then he and his new spouse predeceased Sandvik.
 Given these limited options, Frazier submitted a proposed QDRO that
incorporated the option under the plan that allowed him to name a future spouse as a
joint survivor beneficiary. Sandvik objected in writing, arguing that Frazier's proposed
QDRO failed to capture the purpose of the parties' agreement to ensure that she would
receive benefits relating to her interest in the plan for the remainder of her life. Frazier
filed a response, arguing that the parties had agreed that Sandvik was only entitled to
50% of the marital portion of the survivor benefits. Therefore Frazier asked the court
to "consider reforming the parties' agreement" by selecting the third option under the
plan and then requiring him to purchase a life insurance policy if he remarried to
"protect[] the full extent of [Sandvik's] entitlement."
 At a hearing held in September 2022 the parties made clear that they each
believed that they had reached an agreement as to the plan's division. As Frazier's
counsel put it, "[T]here's no disagreement over what the agreement is, but how do we
make it happen?" After hearing from the parties, the court requested that they craft a
stipulation regarding exactly "what issue [they] would like the court to decide."
 B. The Parties' Stipulations
 Each party subsequently submitted a stipulation. Both Frazier and
Sandvik maintained that they had agreed to divide the marital portion of the plan equally

 2
 This interest would be "a share of each monthly preretirement death
benefit payment, determined by multiplying the monthly payment by a fraction, the
numerator of which is the number of months the Alternate Payee was married to the
Participant during which the Participant accrued service credit and the denominator of
which is the number of months of credited service accrued by the Participant at death."

 -3- 7782
 by QDRO "with a 50% survivorship to [Sandvik]." Both parties also recognized that
this was not possible under the terms of the plan.
 Frazier maintained that the court should select the option under the plan
that allowed him to name a future spouse as a survivor beneficiary, and then order him
to purchase life insurance should he remarry in order to guarantee payments equivalent
to survivor benefits to Sandvik for the rest of her life. He believed that this option
would ensure that Sandvik received the agreed-upon 50% survivor benefit, and would
also allow him to provide for a future spouse. Frazier viewed the third option plus life
insurance to be a "win-win" solution.
 Sandvik did not see it this way. She did not trust Frazier to diligently pay
the life insurance premiums. She argued that the court should order the option that
would entitle her to 100% of the survivor benefits under the plan.
 C. The Superior Court's Decision
 The superior court ultimately selected the option under the plan that
allowed Frazier to name a future spouse as a joint survivor beneficiary, but did not
require Frazier to purchase life insurance. The court first observed that the parties had
agreed that "the marital portion of Mr. Frazier's [plan] would be divided equally by
QDRO with a 50% survivorship to Ms. Sandvik." The court reasoned that it would not
require Frazier to name Sandvik as the surviving spouse because the parties had agreed
that Sandvik was entitled only to receive her interest of the marital portion of the plan.
However, the court did not reference or incorporate into its order Frazier's offer to
purchase a life insurance policy. The court noted that while "the third option may not
be entirely what either party wants, and it carries certain risks for both parties, it appears
to most fairly allocate the risks."
 Sandvik appeals, arguing that the superior court erred by not selecting the
option under the plan that would make her the sole survivor beneficiary, and by failing
to ensure that she received survivor benefits for her lifetime.

 -4- 7782
 STANDARD OF REVIEW
 "We construe property settlement agreements in divorce actions in
accordance with basic principles of contract law."3 "When interpreting any contract,
the goal is to give effect to the reasonable expectations of the parties. We review the
interpretation of a contract de novo. Where the superior court considers extrinsic
evidence in interpreting contract terms, however, we will review the superior court's
factual determinations for clear error and inferences drawn from that extrinsic evidence
for support by substantial evidence."4
 "The supplying of an omitted term is not technically [contract]
interpretation, but the two are closely related; courts often speak of an ‘implied' term."5
When a court supplies an omitted term, we review that decision for an abuse of
discretion.6
 DISCUSSION
 A. The Superior Court Supplied An Essential Term At The Parties'
 Request.
 We begin by observing that when Sandvik and Frazier submitted the
survivor-benefits issue to the superior court, they failed to clearly identify what decision
they were asking the superior court to make and what legal framework controlled that
decision. Therefore, before determining whether the court erred, we must characterize
what it is the court did when it decided the survivor-benefits issue.

 3
 Krushensky v. Farinas, 189 P.3d 1056, 1060 (Alaska 2008) (citing Keffer
v. Keffer, 852 P.2d 394, 397 (Alaska 1993)).
 4
 Mahan v. Mahan, 347 P.3d 91, 94 (Alaska 2015) (quoting Villars v.
Villars, 277 P.3d 763, 768 (Alaska 2012)).
 5
 RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTS. § 204 cmt. a (AM. L. INST. 1981).
 6
 See Disotell v. Stiltner, 100 P.3d 890, 896 (Alaska 2004) (explaining
"superior court has discretion to decide" what is a reasonable term to supply).

 -5- 7782
 As explained above, we "construe property settlement agreements in
divorce actions in accordance with basic principles of contract law."7 And we have
often turned to the Restatement (Second) of Contracts when reviewing contract
matters.8 Section 266 of the Restatement provides that a party has no duty to perform
under a contract where the "principal purpose" of the agreement is "substantially
frustrated."9
 Here, as the parties explained, the purpose of this agreement was to ensure
that Sandvik continued to receive benefits relating to her interest in the marital portion
of the plan for the rest of her life. Therefore, the ARRC plan's inability to accommodate
this agreement "substantially frustrated" the agreement's principal purpose.10
 The Restatement also provides that when the primary purpose of an
agreement is substantially frustrated, the court has the power to "grant relief on such
terms as justice requires."11 This power includes the ability to "[s]upply[] a term to
avoid injustice."12 "When the parties to a bargain sufficiently defined to be a contract
have not agreed with respect to a term which is essential to a determination of their
rights and duties, a term which is reasonable in the circumstances [may be] supplied by
the court."13

 7
 Krushensky, 189 P.3d at 1060 (citing Keffer, 852 P.2d at 397).
 8
 See Disotell, 100 P.3d at 896 (looking to RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF
CONTS. § 204 for guidance regarding when court should supply term to contract); State
Div. of Agric., Agric. Revolving Loan Fund v. Carpenter, 869 P.2d 1181, 1184 (Alaska
1994) (relying on RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTS. § 266).
 9
 RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTS. § 266(2).
 10
 Id.
 11
 Id. § 272(2).
 12
 Id. § 272 cmt. c.
 13
 Id. § 204.

 -6- 7782
 Here, the superior court's decision regarding the survivor-benefits issue is
best understood as an exercise of its ability to supply a term where the parties requested
that it do so. As Frazier's counsel acknowledged, there was "no disagreement over
what the agreement" was, the parties just needed the court's help to implement it. The
court found that the parties had initially agreed to divide the marital portion of Frazier's
retirement plan equally by QDRO with 50% survivorship to Sandvik, but that the plan's
terms did not allow for division. And at the parties' request, the court supplied a term
to best capture the essential parts of the agreement.
 B. We Remand This Matter For The Court To Explain Why It Did Not
 Require Frazier To Purchase Life Insurance Or To Make Such
 Modification As It Deems Necessary To Protect Sandvik's Interest.
 Having placed the superior court's decision within the relevant legal
framework, we move on to determine whether the court abused its discretion. We begin
by examining the nature of the benefits at issue. Survivor benefits provide "a right to
receive periodic payments over the nonowning spouse's lifetime, following the death
of the owning spouse."14 The purpose of survivor benefits is to "support the beneficiary
after the death of the owning spouse causes termination of normal retirement
benefits."15
 Sandvik argues that because survivor benefits are intended to provide for
the beneficiary spouse when the plan-owning spouse dies, the superior court erred when
it selected an option under the plan that took her "bargained-for security away." And
she suggests that the court should have selected the option under the plan that would
make her the sole survivor beneficiary.
 But making Sandvik the sole survivor beneficiary would have entitled her
to more than her marital share of the plan. Because this option deviated from the

 14
 2 BRETT R. TURNER, EQUITABLE DISTRIB. OF PROP. § 6:43 (4th ed. 2024).
 15
 Id.

 -7- 7782
 parties' agreement that only the marital portion of the plan should be divided equally
with "50% survivorship" to Sandvik, the superior court was within its discretion to
reject Sandvik's proposed solution. This is true especially in light of Frazier's "win-
win" offer to purchase life insurance in the event that he named a future spouse as a
joint survivor beneficiary.
 However, the superior court did not incorporate Frazier's life insurance
offer into its order; nor did it explain why it chose not to. This was problematic,
especially in light of our precedent describing the role that survivor benefits play in
ensuring that beneficiary spouses receive the full benefit of their property interest in a
plan for the rest of their lives.
 In Zito v. Zito, we made clear that "[b]arring an express understanding to
the contrary, an agreement for equitable division of retirement benefits earned during a
marriage presumptively encompasses survivor benefits."16 This presumption flowed
from the need to ensure that a beneficiary spouse "receive[s] the full benefit of her
property interest" in a retirement plan should the plan-owning spouse die first.17 And
in Conner v. Conner, we reiterated that "survivor benefits are an ‘intrinsic part of the
retirement benefits earned during the marriage.' "18 Further, we instructed that "when
dividing retirement benefits as part of the marital estate, trial courts must protect a
spouse's interest in the retirement benefits either by requiring life insurance or by
including a clause in the [QDRO] requiring that survivor benefits be paid to that
spouse."19

 16
 969 P.2d 1144, 1148 (Alaska 1998).
 17
 Id. at 1147 (quoting Wahl v. Wahl, 945 P.2d 1229, 1232 (Alaska 1997)).
 18
 68 P.3d 1232, 1238 (Alaska 2003) (quoting Zito, 969 P.2d at 1147).
 19
 Id. at 1239 (emphasis added) (citing McDougall v. Lumpkin, 11 P.3d 990,
996 (Alaska 2000)).

 -8- 7782
 On appeal, Frazier argues that the parties had an agreement contrary to the
Zito presumption. Specifically, he argues that the parties did not agree that Sandvik
would receive survivor benefits for the rest of her life, but instead left it to the superior
court to decide how to award her the benefits. But Frazier's argument is inconsistent
with his stipulation that he and Sandvik had agreed that she should receive a "50%
survivorship" interest, and is inconsistent with his offer to purchase life insurance.
 The superior court's failure to explain why it did not incorporate the life
insurance option into its order makes it impossible to meaningfully determine whether
the superior court's decision was a reasonable means of ensuring that Sandvik received
the benefit of her property interest for the rest of her life. We therefore remand this
matter for the court to explain why its selection of the third option under the plan —
without incorporating Frazier's life insurance offer — adequately protected Sandvik's
interest in the plan, or for the court to make such modification as it deems necessary to
protect Sandvik's interest.
 CONCLUSION
 We VACATE the superior court's decision and REMAND for further
proceedings consistent with this decision.

 -9- 7782