Retirement-division case law

Jeremy and Kelly Herrmann were married in 2007 and have two minor children. In April 2022, the district court entered a default divorce decree - a divorce judgment issued after Jeremy failed to participate in the proceedings. Later in 2022, Jeremy filed many motions asking the court to enforce the divorce decree or to hold Kelly in contempt, mostly over how property was divided and over property he said had been left out of the decree, including a Cummins engine and Kelly's pensions. At a November 2022 hearing, Kelly said Jeremy had a federal pension he had not disclosed before the divorce decree was entered, which Jeremy denied. In November 2022, the court resolved 31 of Jeremy's motions, ordering that several mistakenly omitted items be divided equally. The written order mentioned the Cummins engine but did not decide that issue. The court told both parties to file proof of their retirement accounts within 30 days, warning that any claims would be treated as given up if they did not. Jeremy did not file proof of his pension. In January 2023, the court entered an order awarding each party their own pension as separate property. Jeremy then filed a "motion to set aside default judgment," asking the court to undo the pension order, along with seven more motions about withheld, damaged, or omitted property, again including the Cummins engine. The court denied all but one of the motions, found Jeremy was filing piecemeal motions to harass Kelly, and ordered each party to keep any remaining community property in their possession except items specifically awarded to the other in the decree or a prior order. The court also, on its own, set a hearing to consider whether Jeremy should be declared a vexatious litigant. Jeremy appealed. The Court of Appeals ruled on three of Jeremy's challenges and declined to reach others. First, it upheld the denial of his request to undo the pension order, noting he had been given ample time to obtain his pension information but did not do so, did not ask for more time, and did not, on appeal, challenge that finding. Second, on the Cummins engine, the court explained that a party can ask a court to divide an asset mistakenly left out of a divorce decree within three years of discovering the mistake, but Jeremy did not point to evidence showing the engine was an omitted asset rather than part of a vehicle already awarded to Kelly. Third, the court rejected Jeremy's claim of judicial bias, finding he had not shown the bias came from outside the case or reflected the kind of deep-seated antagonism that would make fair judgment impossible. The court also dismissed the appeal to the extent Jeremy tried to appeal from the order merely setting a future vexatious litigant hearing, because no statute or court rule allows an appeal from such an order. Claims about child custody and other matters were not addressed because they related to earlier orders not timely appealed or were not raised below.