Supreme Court Report

Supreme Court of the United States · Official docket →

Sean Braunstein v. Jericka Braunstein

Paid petition · Supreme Court of New Hampshire, No. 2019-0065 · judgment February 13, 2020


Certiorari denied · November 9, 2020
Pre-decision estimate: 1% cert probability

Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.

Questions presented

  1. Where Congress’s enumerated military powers preempt all state law concerning disposition of military benefits, and Congress has not affirmatively granted the state the power to treat veterans’ disability benefits received by a non-retired, disabled service member as “income” for purposes of support obligations to dependents, and in fact, explicitly, excludes such benefits from state court control and affirmatively protects these benefits from “all legal and equitable process whatever” whether “before or after receipt” by the veteran, is Rose v. Rose, 481 U.S. 619 (1987), which ruled to the contrary, a legitimate basis for the state of New Hampshire to usurp the Supremacy Clause and, in direct conflict with positive federal law, order Petitioner, a non-retired, disabled veteran to include these monies as “income” available for purposes of calculating his child support obligations?

  2. Where, after Rose, supra, Congress created an Article I Court in the Veterans Judicial Review Act (VJRA), 38 U.S.C. § 511 and gave the Secretary of Veterans Affairs “exclusive jurisdiction over all questions of law and fact necessary to a determination of benefits by veterans and dependents,” and made such decisions final and conclusive as to all other courts, does a state court have jurisdiction or authority to make a disposition of these benefits to another party in a manner that is contrary to the initial benefit determination?

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Carson J. Tucker
Lex Fori, PLLC

For respondent

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 2 conferences

Proceedings

  1. Feb 22 2021
    Rehearing DENIED.
  2. Jan 27 2021
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/19/2021.
  3. Dec 05 2020
    Petition of Sean Braunstein for rehearing not accepted for filing. (December 31, 2020)
  4. Dec 04 2020
    Petition for Rehearing filed.
  5. Nov 09 2020
    Petition DENIED.
  6. Oct 21 2020
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/6/2020.
  7. Aug 28 2020
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due October 2, 2020)