Rumetsch v. Davie

BRITTAIN, J.

The defendants appeal from a judgment awarding the plaintiff a peremptory writ of mandate in effect directing them to approve his claim as a retired corporal of police in the city of Oakland for one-half the amount of salary attached to the rank he had held for one year prior to his retirement. The facts are admitted, and the only question to be determined is whether the respondent is entitled to pension computed on a basis of the salary he was receiving at the date of retirement or that which he was receiving one year, prior to retirement.

The charter of the city of Oakland was adopted in 1911. By section 91 it was provided that “the officers and members of the police department shall receive as annual compensations . . . Corporals—$1,500 . . . Said compensations shall be paid in equal monthly installments. No compensation higher than those herein specified shall be paid to any officer. ...”

Section 95 was as follows: “Any member of the department who shall become physically disabled by reason of any bodily injury received in the performance of his duty, upon his filing with the board of trustees a verified petition, setting forth the facts constituting such disability, and the cause thereof, accompanied by a certificate signed by the chief of police, the captain of the division to which he belongs, and by two regularly licensed physicians of the city, recommending his retirement upon a pension, on account of such disability, may be retired from the department upon an annual pension, equal to one-half the amount of salary attached to the rank which he held one year prior to the date of such retirement, to be paid to him during his life, and to cease at his death. In case his disability shall cease, his pension shall cease, and he shall be restored to the service in the rank he occupied at the time of his retirement.”

Under these provisions when an officer who had held the rank of corporal for one year prior to his retirement was retired, he was paid one-half the amount of salary attached to the rank at the date of his retirement. Since that was

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the salary attached to the rank one year prior to the retirement, it was also equal to one-half the salary attached to the rank at that time. The language of the section was in no sense ambiguous or uncertain.