"I own 100% of my company My dad and his wife (my step mother) are both employees. My dad is HCE/key. How about my step mother?"

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"Participant's divorce decree from a decade ago granted his ex-spouse 50% of the pension benefit accrued during the term of the marriage. No QDRO was ever filed and the participant passed away a few months ago. The ex-spouse has retained an attorney to draft and file a posthumous QDRO. The draft DRO itself is well-written, but the original divorce decree submitted with the draft DRO is a problem. It lists an incorrect plan name and awards the ex-spouse benefits from that plan. There is nothing to indicate the parties ever intended for the ex-spouse to share in the benefits from this plan. In some cases, a court will grant nunc pro tunc (retroactive) orders to correct clerical errors, etc. However, there are cases stating a retroactive order cannot be used to create new substantive rights that didn't previously exist. In this case its not clear whether the local family law court would modify the original decree, or whether the plan could accept that modified order. (The participant had remarried and there is a viable argument that 100% of the survivorship rights vested in the new spouse at the time of the participant's death.) Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated. The posthumous QDRO rules from the DOL are not instructive and the cases are all over the board, even after PPA."