Petition of Louis Lafasciano
Annotate this CasePetitioner Louis Lafasciano petitioned the New Hampshire Supreme Court for review of a decision of respondent, New Hampshire Retirement System Board of Trustees (Board), that rescinded a previously-granted termination of the survivorship benefit of his former spouse, intervenor Margaret Murray, in his state pension. At the time he retired, petitioner named intervenor, then his spouse, as his survivor beneficiary, thereby reducing the amount of the retirement benefit he received during his lifetime. Under the law then in effect, a retired member who designated his or her spouse as survivor beneficiary could terminate that designation during the spouse’s lifetime only if the parties divorced and the spouse remarried. Petitioner and intervenor divorced in 2014. In 2016, the New Hampshire legislature amended RSA 100-A:13 to provide an additional circumstance under which a retired member could terminate a previously-elected spousal survivorship benefit. In November 2016, petitioner requested that intervenor be removed as his primary death beneficiary, stating that the two had been “divorced for two years now, and since the change in state legislation this past August [he] believe[d] that [his] request [could] now be honored.” In July 2020, NHRS informed the petitioner that his 2016 request for termination of his survivor benefit option had been processed in error. It further informed him that NHRS would be “rescinding that termination and reinstituting the 100% joint and survivor option you originally selected for your former spouse” and would be “instituting recoupment proceedings to recover the cumulative pop-up amount that has been paid to you since December 2016.” Petitioner appealed the Board's decision. The Supreme Court found that petitioner did not have a unilateral right to revoke his election of a spousal survivorship benefit. "[A]bsent his former spouse’s remarriage, he may terminate such an election only if his divorce decree 'provides that the former spouse shall renounce any claim to a retirement allowance under RSA 100-A.'" Because the divorce decree here did not require intervenor to renounce her claim to a survivorship benefit, petitioner could not terminate the benefit under the statute. Judgment was thus affirmed.
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