50 F. Supp. 2d 951 - Wilcox v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 2 district · 1 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “To require more specificity would defeat the purpose of the provision creating an exception to inalienability for qualified domestic relations orders, at least in the present case, and for a purely theoretical gain in certainty. It is asking too much of domestic relations lawyers and judges to expect them to dot every i and cross every t in formulating divorce decrees that have shoals with which the modern state-federal law of employee benefits abounds. ERISA implications. Ideally, every domestic relations lawyer should be conversant with ERISA, but it is unrealistic to expect all of them to be. We do not think Congress meant to ask the impossible, not the literally, but the humanly, impossible, or to make a suit for legal malpractice the sole recourse of an ERISA beneficiary harmed by a lawyer’s failure to navigate the treacherous shoals with which the modem state-federal law of employee benefits.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Stewart v. Thorpe Holding Co. Profit Sharing Plan

2. “Even courts which generally are more conservative in their approach to the ERISA requirements nonetheless caution against "unduly narrow” interpretations of the language within a [domestic relations order]. Hawkins, 86 F.3d at 989-990 . In rejecting a narrower approach by the tax court, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reasoned that "[njothing in the plain language of § 414(p)(l)(A)(i) [the I.R.S. counterpart to ERISA provision] exhorts domestic rela tions lawyers literally to mimic the statutory language when drafting these agreements." Id. at 990 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Stewart v. Thorpe Holding Co. Profit Sharing Plan

3. “The committee intends that an order will not be treated as failing to be a qualified order merely because the order does not specify the current mailing address of the participant and alternate payee if the plan administrator has reason to know that address independently of the order. S.Rep. No. 575, 98th Cong., 2d Sess., reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 2547, 2566.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Smith v. Rice