Keith R. Prather v. Yvonne R. Prather

The parties obtained a divorce in the Chancery Court for Montgomery County (“the Trial Court”). On appeal, the wife disputes the Trial Court’s calculation of her portion of the husband’s military retirement pay. Upon our review, we determine that the Trial Court miscalculated the wife’s portion given that it calculated her portion based on the parties’ date of informal separation, rather than the date of the husband’s retirement from the military. In doing so, the Trial Court misclassified marital property as separate property. We, accordingly, vacate the Trial Court’s classification of the husband’s military retirement pay as partially separate property acquired during the marriage and the Trial Court’s division of the entire marital estate, insofar as the Trial Court’s improper classification of this marital asset affects the equitable division of the marital estate as a whole. We remand this cause to the Trial Court for it to properly classify the husband’s military retirement pay as marital property acquired during the months of the marriage, recalculate its division of this marital asset, and re-access its division of the entire marital estate in light of its reclassification and recalculation of its division of this marital asset.