High court Oks retroactive application of Minn. divorce law

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court is siding with a man’s children over his ex-wife in a dispute about who should get more than $180,000 in life insurance proceeds.

The justices ruled on Monday in a case involving the breakup of Mark Sveen and Kaye Melin. When the Minnesota residents divorced in 2007 they didn’t specify who should be the beneficiary of his life insurance policy.

A 2002 Minnesota law says that when a couple divorces, the ex-spouse gets automatically removed as the life insurance beneficiary.

But after Sveen’s 2011 death Melin argued she should get the money, not Sveen’s two children from a previous marriage. Melin argued the law couldn’t apply to the policy because it was purchased before the law was written. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 against her.