William R. Lott v. Maria V. Lott

Petitioner comes to the Court presenting the same issue that has been presented in several other petitions brought by Counsel of Record on behalf of disabled veterans nationwide, who have had their personal right and entitlement to federal veterans’ benefits stripped from them by state courts that have ignored the Supremacy Clause’s absolute preemption over state law in this subject despite multiple admonitions by this Court that such benefits are offlimits and they have no authority or jurisdiction to vest these benefits in anyone other than the statutorily designated beneficiaries – the disabled veteran. See Howell v. Howell, 581 U.S. 214, 137 S. Ct. 1400 (2017). In this case, the Virginia Court of Appeals ruled that Petitioner’s Chapter 61 disability pay, which is non-disposable disability retirement pay, and therefore expressly and automatically excluded from consideration as a divisible asset in state court divorce proceedings by the Uniformed Services Former Spouses Protection Act (USFSPA), 10 U.S.C. § 1408, could nonetheless be considered a disposable asset because Petitioner agreed that he would indemnify Respondent for her loss of her statutory share of Petitioner’s disposable retired pay. The question presented is as follows: May a state court enforce a contractual agreement entered into between a disabled veteran and his former spouse, which agreement obligates the veteran to use