Allstot v. City of Long Beach

California Court of Appeal May 25, 1951 No. Civ. 17908Published

Before: Shinn

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Holding. The court held that municipal pension modifications are valid if they provide a substantial or reasonable pension, and that limiting future pension increases for employees who had not yet reached retirement eligibility is a permissible legislative modification.

Issues

Whether the city charter amendment limiting future pension increases for employees constitutes an unconstitutional impairment of contract.
Whether the proviso in the amendment limiting pension rights is severable from the invalid portions of the repealing legislation.
Whether the pension classification based on years of service violates state or federal constitutional equal protection and uniformity requirements.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“the employee does not have a right to any fixed or definite benefits, but only to a substantial or reasonable pension. There is no inconsistency therefore in holding that he has a vested right to a pension but that the amount, terms and conditions of the benefits may be altered.”

SHINN, P. J.

Plaintiffs, 36 in number, brought this action for a declaration of their rights to pensions under the charter of the city of Long Beach. Nineteen of the plaintiffs are employees of the police or fire departments. The remaining 17 have retired as members of one or the other department. Plaintiffs appeal from portions of the judgment, and the questions involved are common to all of them.

Under section 187 of the city charter, a member of either department could retire after 20 years of service and would be entitled to receive as a pension 50 per cent of the amount of salary received by him one year prior to retirement, plus

per cent thereof for each year of service in addition to 20 years and not to exceed 30 years. On March 29, 1945, section 187.1 of the charter was adopted. This section purported to repeal section 187 and, with a single exception to be mentioned, to terminate all rights to retirement pensions. In

Kern

City of Long Beach,

29 Cal.2d 848 [179 P.2d 799], it was denied the effect of a general repeal upon the ground that those who were members of either department at the time of the attempted repeal had “a vested pension right and that respondent city, by completely repealing all pension provisions, has attempted to impair its contractual obligations. This it may not constitutionally do, and therefore the repeal is ineffective as to petitioner.” (P. 856.)

Section 187.1 contained a proviso to the effect that any member of either department who had served 20 years or more on the effective date of the amendment, March 29, 1945, would be entitled to retire at any time within five years thereafter and to be paid a pension of such percentage of his salary as he would have been entitled to receive had he retired on the effective date of the amendment.

After the Kern case was decided, the question arose whether this proviso was effective to place a limitation upon the amounts that might be earned by continuous service under the plan established by section 187, namely, an increase at

[443]

Allstot v. City of Long Beach

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SHINN, P. J.

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