I am a widow who will be receiving a pension from my deceased husband pension his ex-wife who divorced him over 20 years ago is seeking a certain percentage based on her divorced decree that states should is entitle to a percentage upon his retirement. However it does not have any stimpulation about his death. She has tried to obtain that portion based on the original divorce decree but it was denied by the management company. I am his only beneficiary on the pension. Now she has contacted me to find out how much is the pension. I am sure she is trying to avoid any court costs. I gave her no information. However, her attorney wrote me a letter to inform me it would be in my best interest to give them the information so I could avoid any court cost. I have not intention to respond to this letter. I was told in the letter I need to respond within 10 days. Why does his ex-wife want to drag me into her issues of a divorce decgree from 20 years ago? She must be so desperate for information. Does she have a right to involve me in this lack of a QUADRO? Her attorney claims that it would be in my interested to sign some papers so they can find out from the management company how much is the pension. Whould it be in my interest?

Was there or wasn't there a QDRO in place on your husband's death? If not, she is probably out of luck and will get nothing, zero, nada (there are some possible ways around it but they are difficult).

If there was a QDRO in place (she obviously did not take her share of the retirement early) then what she would be getting would be a percentage of the survivor annuity (death benefit). That percentage should be set forth in the QDRO. That percentage would be hers and what's left would be yours. I'd tell her and her attorney to take a hike. You neither know nor care anything about your deceased husband's divorce. That her problem and her attorneys to figure what went wrong! Don't give them any help (and the threats of going to court and having court costs, and the 10 day time limit are a bluff, it's all nonsense--they are trying to strong-arm you for probably a tremendous mistake of (and malpractice committed by) the former wife's attorney. I'd sit back and laugh at them.

Let me add one thing. You see, the QDRO is designed to bridge a gap caused in the division of a pension at divorce.

Here's a little background: All pensions (the private ones--leave the government-sponsored ones aside for now) have to have survivor annuities to cover a surviving spouse upon the death of the employee (for example, he works for the company for 30 years but dies before retiring, wife gets the pension, which is usually a percentage of what the retirement benefit would have been, by law it has to be at least 50%). This is all a matter of a federal law known as ERISA (The Employee Income Security Act of 1974). But listen, what the ERISA doesn't allow for is coverage of a former spouse (someone who was divorced from the employee). Now, when ERISA first came out, this was the way it worked-- former spouses were not protected and had a REALLY hard time in securing their rights to part of the pension that the divorce said they should have when the employee died. There were tons of cases from about '74 to the early 80's in which courts tried to find ways to protect former spouses and it was tough.

Now, Congress didn't think this was too fair to former spouses to leave them out in the cold when their former husbands (or wives) died and had a pension that was divided in their divorce, so in about 1984 ERISA was amended to allow for coverage of former spouses. Hence, the Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) was born! This meant that a former spouse now was protected but ONLY if a QDRO was in place saying what the former spouse's rights were in the pension. The divorce decree is/was not enough. No QDRO no rights.

Your husband's es-wife probably has a lawyer who blew it, didn't get the QDRO in before you husband died and now he's panicking and is going to have to turn this over to his malpractice carrier because you are going to get 100% of the retirement benefits and former wife will get zip.