This case concerned whether the husband’s disability retirement benefits were marital or non-marital property. Reversing the lower courts and enunciating a new rule of law, the Kentucky Supreme Court agreed with the husband to find that courts are to classify disability benefits according to the nature of the wages they replace rather than whether or not they are one of the excepted categories or whether the source of the funds used to acquire the benefits was marital. The Court found that because the disability benefits replaced post-dissolution wages that the husband would have received as a firefighter, those benefits are appropriately classified as the husband’s separate non-marital property.
Family law/disability benefits/post dissolution wages/non-marital disability retirement benefits are non-marital earnings under facts of case.
