Erickson-Dickson v. Erickson-Dickson

The special commissioner received evidence and filed a report in which he recommended that the wife be granted a monetary award of $8,634.38, provided the court had the authority to do so. The special commissioner raised for the first time whether the 1986 amendment to Code § 20-107.3 precluded further adjudication of the equitable distribution issues. Thereafter, the husband objected to the trial court receiving the commissioners recommendation of a monetary award and considering further the issue of equitable distribution, asserting for the first time that the trial court no longer had jurisdiction to adjudicate the issues of equitable distribution. He argued there, as he does here, that the 1986 amendment to Code § 20-107.3 is cast in terms that the court "may retain jurisdiction" in the final divorce decree, provided the two mandatory prerequisites are met. When, as here, those conditions have not been met, he argues, the court is divested of its jurisdiction to consider further the equitable distribution issues.