The Supreme Court of Louisiana denied Petitioner's appeal on purely state law grounds of estoppel and res judicata in affirming a Court of Appeals' opinion that applied these doctrines to Petitioner's divorce settlement in which he was held to have agreed to dispossess himself of his veterans' disability pay despite a federal statute, 38 U.S.C.S. § 5301(a)(1) and (3) (§ 5301), which prohibits a state court from entering any "legal or equitable" orders to enforce such an agreement and which deems them "void from inception."

In Howell v. Howell, 137 S. Ct. 1400, 1405 (2017), this Court, for the first time, ruled that § 5301 removed all authority from state courts to vest these statutory disability benefits in anyone other than the designated beneficiary. The Court stated it does not matter that a divorce agreement may be said to "vest" the former spouse with an immediate right to the percentage of the veteran's disposable military benefits, because the availability of such pay is contingent on the veteran's potential receipt of restricted disability pay in lieu of disposable retirement pay. Id. at 1405-1406. Not only is the state prohibited from enforcing such agreements, but too, it may not issue orders requiring the veteran to "reimburse" or "indemnify" the former spouse. Id. at 1406. "Regardless of their form, such reimbursement and indemnification orders displace the federal rule and stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the purposes and objectives of Congress. All such orders are thus preempted." Id.

The only time the state has such authority is where Congress itself has spoken, and when it does give the state authority over such benefits, its grant is both "precise and limited." Id. at 1404, citing Mansell v. Mansell, 490 U.S. 581, 589 (1989).

Does Congress' enumerated Military Powers exercised pursuant to the Supremacy Clause bar a state court from raising res judicata to a post judgment challenge to an agreement in which a disabled veteran is forced to part with his restricted disability pay to make up for a reduction in his disposable retirement pay, where the federal statute at issue (38 U.S.C.S. § 5301) clearly prevents state courts from issuing any legal or equitable orders to divert said monies, and in fact explicitly voids any such consent agreements from inception?

Does Congress' enumerated Military Powers exercised pursuant to the Supremacy Clause bar a state court from raising res-judicata to a post-judgment challenge to an agreement in which a disabled-veteran is forced to part with his restricted-disability-pay