We filed the attached application for leave to appeal, once again defending Ray J. Foster in his fight to correct Michigan law, which had gone astray of preemptive federal law for at least 18 years holding that veterans were required to indemnify or reimburse former spouses with federally protected disability payments. We’ve had to file another application in the Michigan Supreme Court after the Court of Appeals ignored the ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Howell v Howell.
The gist of what state courts had been doing to get around preemptive federal law is summed up best in the exchange at oral argument between Chief Justice Roberts and the then Solicitor General (who at that time supported the states). Chief Justice Roberts characterized the state court’s sophistic ploy to get around the purpose of the federal statutes protecting veterans’ benefits as a “charade”. For the entire exchange, which is quite entertaining, see pages 32 and 33 of our application (linked below).
Law Offices of Carson J. Tucker filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of Veterans of Foreign Wars and Operation Firing for Effect supporting all veterans nationwide who have been consistently and surreptitiously deprived by state courts of the disability benefits to which they have always been entitled by federal law. That brief is here: Amicus Brief for VFW and OFFE in Howell v Howell
The Supreme Court went on to issue a rare unanimous opinion rejecting the states’ position agreeing with all of our arguments. See Howell v. Howell_ 137 S. Ct. 1400
We keep fighting.