McCarty v. McCarty

McCarty v. McCarty was a legal case where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress’s 1983 law allowing military pensions to be divided upon divorce did not override the military's own rules limiting pension division based on the length of service. Essentially, the court decided that military pensions could only be divided after at least 10 years of service, meaning shorter service periods couldn’t be split during divorce proceedings. The case clarified the limits of federal law in modifying the military's retirement benefits and underscored the importance of existing military rules in divorce cases involving pensions.