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Valdez v. Ramirez

574 S.W.2d 748 (1978)

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Valdez v. Ramirez

Texas Supreme Court
574 S.W.2d 748 (1978)

  • Written by Whitney Kamerzel , JD

Facts

Lillie Valdez (defendant) was a United States Civil Service employee for 352 months. For 340 of those months, Valdez was married to Tomas Valdez, Sr. After Lillie retired, she started to receive retirement benefits under the Federal Civil Service Retirement Act. Lillie also elected to take the retirement benefit as a joint-survivor annuity, which meant that if either spouse survived the other, they would own the entire retirement benefit as separate property. The Federal Civil Service Retirement Act provided that retirement payments could be made to the employee or the employee’s spouse or, upon the employee’s death, to the employee’s children under the age of 18. No additional persons were eligible to receive an employee’s retirement benefits. Two years after Lillie started receiving her retirement benefits, Tomas died and left his share of his community property to his adult children from a former marriage, Olga Ramirez and Tomas Valdez, Jr. (plaintiffs). Olga and Tomas Jr. sued Lillie in state court to receive their father’s community-property interest in Lillie’s retirement benefits. The trial court held in Tomas Jr. and Olga’s favor and awarded them each half of the community-property interest that Tomas Sr. had in Lillie’s retirement benefits. The court of appeals affirmed. Lillie appealed.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Daniel, J.)

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