Luttropp and Luttropp

                                       554

        Argued and submitted October 29, 2019, affirmed May 19, 2021


                  In the Matter of the Marriage of
                      Cheryl Ann LUTTROPP,
                        Petitioner-Appellant,
                                 and
                     Jerald Duane LUTTROPP,
                      Respondent-Respondent.
                  Multnomah County Circuit Court
                        16DR06167; A168375
                                   

    In this appeal from a marital dissolution judgment, wife challenges the trial
court’s equitable division of marital assets. She asserts that the trial court erred
by refusing to classify a lump-sum social security disability award as marital
property for equitable division. Husband argues that the trial court did not err
because, in his view, the Social Security Act prohibits the type of division that
wife requests. Held: The trial court did not err. The text of section 407(a) of the
Social Security Act expressly precludes Social Security benefits from being categorized as marital property subject to equitable division.
    Affirmed.



    Amy Holmes Hehn, Judge.
   Bradford F. Miller argued the cause for appellant. Also
on the briefs was Stahancyk, Kent & Hook, P. C.
   Elizabeth C. Savage argued the cause for respondent.
Also on the brief were Ivan M. Karmel and Karmel Savage,
P. C.
  Before Lagesen, Presiding Judge, and DeVore, Judge, and
Powers, Judge.
    POWERS, J.
    Affirmed.
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 (2021)                            555

        POWERS, J.
         In this appeal from a marital dissolution judgment,
wife challenges the trial court’s equitable division of marital assets and award of spousal support. We reject without discussion the challenge to the spousal-support award.
With respect to the division of marital assets, wife asserts
that the trial court erred by refusing to classify a lump-sum
social security disability (SSD) award as marital property
for equitable division. Husband argues that the trial court
did not err because, in his view, the Social Security Act prohibits the type of division that wife requests. For the reasons explained below, we conclude that the trial court did
not err and, accordingly, affirm.
                 STANDARD OF REVIEW
         As a threshold matter, because this is not an exceptional case, we decline to exercise our discretion to consider
the case de novo. See ORAP 5.40(8)(c) (explaining that we
review de novo only in exceptional cases). Thus, in reviewing
the trial court’s judgment, we are bound by the court’s findings if there is any evidence in the record to support them.
Maldonado and Freed, 

, 

(2018).
         ORS 107.105(1)(f) requires that a division of marital
property must be “just and proper in all the circumstances.”
Absent a legal error, a trial court’s ultimate determination
as to what overall property division is just and proper in
all the circumstances is a matter of discretion. Herald and
Steadman, 

, 

 (2014), cert den, 

 (2015). Because wife asserts that the trial court’s
division violated federal law in considering husband’s SSD,
we review that narrow issue for legal error. 

                      BACKGROUND
         The parties were married in 1993, and wife filed for
dissolution from husband in March 2016. Husband and wife
had comparable incomes until around 2010. Sometime later,
the Social Security Administration determined husband to
be “totally and permanently disabled” and, during the dissolution proceedings, husband received a one-time lump sum
of $77,736 for disability benefits owed to him for the time
556                                     Luttropp and Luttropp

period of June 2013 to February 2017. Husband also receives
$1,978 per month in SSD payments. The court found that
wife has $1,747 available to pay husband spousal support
and awarded husband $1,500 a month in support.
         Before the trial court, the parties disputed whether
the SSD lump-sum award was subject to equitable division
as a marital asset. In particular, the parties disagreed on
how section 407(a) of the Social Security Act applies to the
division of the SSD award. That section provides:
       “The right of any person to any future payment under
   this subchapter shall not be transferable or assignable, at
   law or in equity, and none of the moneys paid or payable
   or rights existing under this subchapter shall be subject
   to execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal
   process, or to the operation of any bankruptcy or insolvency
   law.”

(a). Wife asserted that she was entitled to one
half of the lump-sum, arguing that the “plain language of
[the] statute clearly only applies to future payments, not
payments already received by the parties.” In wife’s view,
because she was not asserting any claim to future SSD payments, the statute did not apply to the lump sum that had
already been paid. Husband remonstrated that the statute
controlled the resolution of the dispute and relied on Herald.
In that case, the Oregon Supreme Court held that “Social
Security benefits are not marital property and are not subject to outright division in dissolution actions” for a number
of reasons, including that “federal law preempts any state
law that authorizes the assignment or transfer” of those
benefits. 

.
        The trial court concluded that the lump sum SSD
award was not marital property subject to equitable distribution. Relying on Herald, the court reasoned that it was
   “pretty clear that an award of this type of Social Security
   benefits is not property in the traditional sense subject to
   division by the Court.
      “I know that the cases we have in this area are all about
   receipt of future income. But to me, the language of the
   opinion is pretty clear that this is not property subject to
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 (2021)                              557

   the presumption of equal contribution and division in the
   way that a typical asset would be.”
In the dissolution judgment, the court concluded that the
lump sum is “not a marital asset that the Court has authority to divide, and the Court may only consider the funds in
the ultimate just and equitable analysis.” Wife then initiated this appeal.
        On appeal, wife largely renews her contentions,
arguing that the trial court erred by: (1) determining that
the SSD lump sum was not a marital asset; (2) not equally
dividing husband’s other “unilaterally liquidated” retirement assets; and (3) misapplying Herald. We reject the second argument without discussion and, as explained below,
because the trial court did not misinterpret or misapply the
law, we reject wife’s first and third arguments.
                       DISCUSSION
         We begin (and end) with the text of section 407(a) of
the Social Security Act. In construing a federal statute, we
follow the interpretative methodology prescribed by the federal courts. “Federal courts generally determine the meaning of a statute by examining its text and structure and, if
necessary, its legislative history.” Corp. of Presiding Bishop
v. City of West Linn, 

, 

 (2005).
Here, we need not look beyond the plain text. Section 407(a)
contains two antiassignment clauses: The first involves
future payments (i.e., “The right of any person to any future
payment under this subchapter shall not be transferable or
assignable ….”), and a second clause that involves “moneys paid or payable” (i.e., “and none of the moneys paid or
payable or rights existing under this subchapter shall be
subject to execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or
other legal process, or to the operation of any bankruptcy or
insolvency law”). Those clauses are joined by the term “and,”
which means that they must be read in a way that gives full
effect to both clauses.
         Pointing to the “future payments” clause of the statute, wife asserts that “[t]he plain language of the statute
illustrates that its reach is limited to future payments of
Social Security benefits, not to those that have already been
558                                   Luttropp and Luttropp

received.” We disagree. That argument reads out the “moneys paid” language of section 407(a). See United Sav. Ass’n of
Texas v. Timbers of Inwood Forest Associates, Ltd., 

, 

, 

 (1988) (“A provision
that may seem ambiguous in isolation is often clarified by
the remainder of the statutory scheme … because only one
of the permissible meanings produces a substantive effect
that is compatible with the rest of the law[.]”). In our view,
the phrase “paid or payable” unequivocally encapsulates
Social Security benefits that have already been paid as well
as benefits that are forthcoming.

         Our conclusion about the text of 

(a) is also consistent with Herald. In that case, the
Oregon Supreme Court addressed a similar issue of whether
section 407(a) prohibits trial courts from making “any consideration of Social Security benefits in a property division.”

 (emphasis omitted). Although that question
is different than the one presented here, the court’s discussion is nonetheless instructive.

         In concluding that courts could consider the presence of Social Security benefits in the “just and proper” division of property, the court discussed at length the history
and context of 

(a). It first noted that, by
enacting section 407(a), “Congress had manifested its intent
to prohibit state courts from considering Social Security
benefits in dividing marital property.” Id. at 110; see also
id. at 112 (“Courts that have considered the issue have uniformly concluded—as this court did in Swan[and Swan, 

, 

 (1986)]—that Social Security benefits are not marital property and are not subject to outright
division in dissolution actions.”). Further, because section
407(a) is a federal law, it preempts “any state law that authorizes the assignment or transfer of Social Security benefits.”
Id. at 112. That means that, “[a]s pertinent to the division
of property in a marital dissolution action, the antiassignment provision in 

(a) prohibits either
(1) an outright transfer or assignment of a participant’s
Social Security benefits, or (2) an offsetting award in value
of other assets based on the value of a participant’s Social
Security benefits.” Id. at 122-23.
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         Importantly, the court explained that a trial court
may still consider the presence of a party’s Social Security
benefits in the overall property division calculus without
dividing that asset as marital property. See id. at 119-20
(noting that a trial court “does not per se violate 42 USC section 407(a) by considering Social Security benefits in fashioning a just and proper property division”). In this case,
however, wife does not challenge the trial court’s consideration of Social Security benefits in its overall “just and
proper” division; rather, she challenges the trial court’s
failure to categorize and divide the lump-sum as martial
property. Given the text of 

(a), we agree
with the trial court’s determination that the lump-sum SSD
award was not marital property subject to equitable distribution. We therefore affirm the judgment.
        Affirmed.