§5.07 Pension Rights

The community owns all pension rights attributable to employment during the marriage. A spouse's pension rights acquired during marriage, whether a vested benefit or not, are community property. [Marriage of Brown (1976) 15 C3d 838, 842, 847.]

The apportionment of retirement benefits between the separate and community property estates must be reasonable and fairly representative of their relative contributions. [Marriage of Lehman (1998) 18 C4th 169, 187; Marriage of Poppe (1979) 97 CA3d 1, 11.]

What if the total years of service by an employee-spouse is a substantial factor in calculating that spouse's retirement benefits? In this situation, a "time rule" applies and the community share equals a percentage based on:

(1) The length of service performed during the marriage but before separation, divided by
(2) The total length of service necessary to earn those benefits.

The relation between years of community service to total years of service provides a fair gauge of retirement benefits that are attributable to community effort. [Marriage of Judd (1977) 68 CA3d 515, 522–523.]