Cook v. Cook, 100 N.E.3d 1100

Thomas and Tami Cook divorced in December 2004; the trial court entered a jointly submitted division of property order on June 9, 2006 to implement the decree.
The decree stated the parties would divide equally, by division of property order, the marital portion of Husband’s PERS pension and allowed Wife to receive her portion regardless of why the pension went into pay status.
The 2006 division of property order named Wife as alternate payee and specified Wife’s periodic benefit as 50% of a coverture fraction (8.667 years during marriage over a denominator determined at retirement); it did not state a dollar cap or a limited number of payments.
In July 2016 Husband moved to terminate the division of property order, arguing Wife had already received an amount equal to her one-half share of the marital value and that further payments would exceed her entitlement.
The magistrate and trial court rejected Husband’s motion; the court held the record did not establish a fixed present-value distribution or cap and that the order effectuated a periodic benefit allocation (coverture/frozen coverture concepts).
Husband appealed, arguing the court lacked jurisdiction to modify the decree and that the court’s denial effectively modified the property division.

Issue	Husband's Argument	Wife's Argument	Held
Whether the trial court erred in denying Husband’s motion to terminate the division of property order (and thereby impermissibly modified the divorce decree)	The decree provided a fixed-value distribution of Wife’s half of the marital portion; Wife already received that amount, so the order should be terminated and further payments stopped; the court lacked jurisdiction to alter a fixed division	The decree and division order provided for an equal share of the marital portion implemented by a percentage/coverture calculation producing periodic payments; no cap or sum-certain was established; termination was improper	Court affirmed: no abuse of discretion. The record shows a periodic/coverture-based allocation (not a present-value cap); denial did not impermissibly modify the decree and the court retained authority to construe the order.

Blakemore v. Blakemore, 5 Ohio St.3d 217 (1983) (abuse-of-discretion standard explained)
Hoyt v. Hoyt, 53 Ohio St.3d 177 (1990) (distinguishes present cash-value distributions from deferred/coverture methods for pension division)
Thompson v. Thompson, 196 Ohio App.3d 764 (2011) (illustrates coverture fraction method and periodic benefit calculation)