Case: Health & Welfare Benefits/Life Insurance (10th Cir.)

ExxonMobil Corp. must give the ex-wife of a deceased employee the proceeds of his life insurance policy, despite its protestations that the couple’s divorce decree wasn’t a qualified domestic relations order under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Tenth Circuit ruled. ExxonMobil argued that the decree wasn’t a QDRO because it didn’t specify the amount of the coverage the deceased employee was to carry or the name of the benefit plan that held it. But the appeals court found that the decree designated the ex-wife as the sole beneficiary, and gave her 100% of the insurance benefit, which designated ...