What is a “Qualified Domestic Relations Order”?
A Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) is a court order that assigns all or a portion of the benefits which would otherwise be payable to a participant under a qualified retirement plan to another person. If the court order does not meet all of the requirements for a QDRO, the plan is prohibited from paying plan benefits to anyone other than the plan participant.
A “qualified domestic relation order” (QDRO) is a domestic relations order that creates or recognizes the existence of an alternate payee’s right to receive, or assigns to an alternate payee the right to receive, all or a portion of the benefits payable with respect to a participant under a retirement plan, and that includes certain information and meets certain other requirements.
We refer to these by the acronym “QDROs”, pronounced “quadro” or plural “quadros”. If you need a QDRO, you can thank the United States Congress for passing a law known as the Employees? Retirement Income Security Act (?ERISA?). Congress enacted ERISA as a ?tort reform? measure to protect retirement, pension and health-care plans from lawsuits. Sidney Childress has actually sued big corporations with this law for trying to cheat employees out of previously promised benefits. The United States’ Supreme Court has called the scope of ERISA “deliberately expansive”. Basically, ERISA provides that no plan protected by it is bound to comply with any state court order. Divorces are granted in state court. Therefore, ERISA allows the Administrator of a retirement or pension plan to legally ignore your state-court award of community property. ERISA Plan Administrators will abide by the Divorce Decree and disburse a retirement or pension award directly to a former spouse only if a separate, speci
