Cahoon v. Shelton

• Decision Date: 22 July 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–2134.,10–2134.
• Citation: 647 F.3d 18
• Parties: Raymond W. CAHOON, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants,v.Oscar SHELTON, Individually and in his Official Capacity as Director of Personnel for the City of Warwick, et al., Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

647 F.3d 18

Raymond W. CAHOON, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants,

v.Oscar SHELTON, Individually and in his Official Capacity as Director of Personnel for the City of Warwick, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 10–2134.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard June 7, 2011.Decided July 22, 2011.

William M. Kolb, with whom Law Offices of William M. Kolb, was on brief, for appellants.Marc DeSisto, with whom DeSisto Law, was on brief, for appellees.Before HOWARD, SELYA and THOMPSON, Circuit Judges.SELYA, Circuit Judge.

We are entering an era in which retirement benefits paid to public employees are subject to heightened scrutiny. In this case, a municipality became convinced that former firefighters and police officers who had retired on disability pensions were collecting a particular benefit (full reimbursement of certain medical expenses) without legal warrant. The municipality acted on this conviction and stopped paying the tab. A group of affected retirees sued to enforce continued payment, alleging that the municipality's about-face violated state statutes, constituted an ultra vires act, contradicted principles of equity, and offended the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution.

The district court entered summary judgment against all but three of the plaintiffs. The court then held a bench trial and resolved the remaining claims. The plaintiffs appeal the summary judgment rulings. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

We briefly rehearse the relevant factual and procedural background, supplementing this bare-bones account in our subsequent discussion of particular issues.

The plaintiffs comprise thirty-three retired firefighters and police officers previously employed by Warwick, Rhode Island (the City).¹ At various points over the past three decades, each of them sustained a debilitating injury in the line of duty, resulting in a grant of disability leave by the City's Board of Public Safety (the Board). When it became apparent that the plaintiffs' injuries precluded a return to active duty, the Board exercised its discretion to place them in retirement. See Warwick, R.I., Code of Ordinances §§ 20–112(a)(1), 20–202(a)(1), 52–38(a), 52–76(a). Each plaintiff received a disability pension that included defined medical benefits.

The present dispute centers on the extent of this benefit. In the first instance, the City funds the payment of retirees' medical expenses ² through health insurance, which covers part, but not all, of those costs. For many years, the City also reimbursed excess medical expenses (i.e., expenses not covered by insurance). This meant that one hundred percent of each retiree's medical expenses was reimbursed.

In 2003, the City took a fresh look at its past practice and concluded that, in accordance with a recent decision of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, it was not obliged to reimburse all of a disabled retiree's medical expenses. Consequently, the City's personnel director, Oscar Shelton, informed the plaintiffs, by letter dated December 11, 2003, that as of January 1, 2004, the City would no longer reimburse medical expenses not covered by insurance. Because the letter directed disabled retirees instead to the health insurance provided as part of their pensions, it had the additional effect of requiring that, upon reaching the age of sixty-five, disabled retirees would have to apply for Medicare.

Dismayed by this about-face, the plaintiffs asked for a hearing before the Board. The Board responded that

[a]lthough [the] request can be placed on the agenda, the Board's position is, pursuant to the [Rhode Island] Supreme Court decision, that any retiree who has written confirmation that the City and/or Board of Public Safety will pay 100% of [on-the-job injury] related medical bills after retirement will have those bills paid in full. Otherwise, the Board's position is that the City's health insurance, as part of the retirement plan, meets the City's obligation.

After unsuccessfully presenting their claims to the City Council, see R.I. Gen. Laws § 45–15–5, the plaintiffs brought suit in state court against the Board, the City, and a myriad of municipal officials (including Shelton). Their complaint challenged termination of the practice of fully reimbursing medical expenses as violative of state statutory law, unauthorized, barred by principles of equitable estoppel, and offensive to due process. The defendants removed the action to the federal district court. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1441.

In due season, the defendants sought summary judgment. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56. The district court initially granted the motion on all claims. Cahoon v. Shelton ( Cahoon I ), No. 07–008, 2008 WL 64518, at *12 (D.R.I. Jan. 4, 2008). On the plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration, the court later vacated the judgment with respect to the equitable estoppel claims. See Cahoon v. Shelton ( Cahoon II ), No. 07–008, 2008 WL 6514326, at *1 (D.R.I. Mar. 10, 2008). After further discovery limited to the equitable estoppel issue, the court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on the estoppel claims of all but three of the plaintiffs. See Cahoon v. Shelton ( Cahoon III ), No. 07–008, 2009 WL 1758738, at *7 (D.R.I. June 18, 2009).

The three exempted plaintiffs (James Gordon, Michael Kraczkowski, and Thomas Thompson) tried their estoppel claims to the court, which found that the Board had explicitly promised to reimburse all of Gordon's and Kraczkowski's medical expenses but had made no comparable promise to Thompson. See Cahoon v. Shelton ( Cahoon IV ), No. 07–008, 2010 WL 3385040, at *3–4 (D.R.I. Aug. 26, 2010). The court entered judgment accordingly. Id. at *5. The plaintiffs' timely appeal of the summary judgment rulings followed. The defendants have not appealed the judgments in favor of Gordon and Kraczkowski on the bench-tried estoppel claims. For his part, Thompson has not appealed from the adverse findings in the bench trial (although he, like the plaintiffs generally, continues to press a global claim of estoppel).

II. ANALYSIS

In this venue, the plaintiffs resurrect the same asseverational array that they presented in the court below. After delineating the legal standards that govern our inquiry, we address each of the plaintiffs' four global asseverations. We then turn to the individualized and conceptually distinct claims mounted by Gordon and Kraczkowski. Because the latter two claims stand on a different conceptual footing, we hereafter use the term “the plaintiffs” to designate all the plaintiffs other than Gordon and Kraczkowski.

A. Legal Standards.

Our review of a district court's entry of summary judgment is de novo. Dávila v. Corporación de P.R. para la Difusión Pública, 498 F.3d 9, 12 (1st Cir.2007). We will affirm the decision only if the record reveals no genuine issue as to any material fact and discloses that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Vineberg v. Bissonnette, 548 F.3d 50, 55 (1st Cir.2008). In this endeavor, we are not married to the trial court's reasoning but, rather, may affirm on any independently sufficient ground made manifest by the record. Houlton Citizens' Coal. v. Town of Houlton, 175 F.3d 178, 184 (1st Cir.1999).

When interpreting state law, a federal court employs the method and approach announced by the state's highest court. Carolina Trucks & Equip., Inc. v. Volvo Trucks of N. Am., Inc., 492 F.3d 484, 489 (4th Cir.2007); Nat'l Pharmacies, Inc. v. Feliciano–de–Melecio, 221 F.3d 235, 241–42 (1st Cir.2000). The Rhode Island Supreme Court has made it pellucid that in interpreting state statutes, a court's “ultimate goal is to give effect to the purpose of the act as intended by the Legislature.” Webster v. Perrotta, 774 A.2d 68, 75 (R.I.2001). “The best evidence of such intent can be found in the plain language used in the statute.” Steinhof v. Murphy, 991 A.2d 1028, 1036 (R.I.2010) (quoting State v. Germane, 971 A.2d 555, 574 (R.I.2009)).

Thus, when faced with statutory language that is clear and unambiguous, an inquiring court ordinarily must construe the statute precisely as it is written, giving its constituent words their plain meanings.³ Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Kaya, 947 A.2d 869, 872 (R.I.2008). In performing that task, the court must “consider the entire statute as a whole.” Ryan v. City of Providence, 11 A.3d 68, 71 (R.I.2011). Only if the legislature has sounded an uncertain trumpet should a court resort to canons of statutory construction. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of New Engl., Inc. v. Rossi, 847 A.2d 286, 290 (R.I.2004) (per curiam).

B. The IOD Statute.

The plaintiffs' principal argument hinges on state statutes, municipal ordinances, and the interplay among them. The touchstone of this argument is the injured-on-duty (IOD) statute, which reads in relevant part:

Whenever ... any police officer [or] fire fighter ... of any city ... is wholly or partially incapacitated by reason of injuries received ... in the performance of his or her duties ..., the respective city ... by which the police officer [or] fire fighter ... is employed, shall, during the period of the incapacity, pay the police officer [or] fire fighter ... the salary or wage and benefits to which the police officer [or] fire fighter ... would be entitled had he or she not been incapacitated, and shall pay the medical [expenses] for the necessary period.... In addition, the cities ... shall pay all similar expenses incurred by a member who has been placed on a disability pension and suffers a recurrence of the injury or illness that dictated his or her disability retirement.

R.I. Gen. Laws § 45–19–1(a).

The IOD statute comprises two sentences. The district court concluded that neither sentence was sufficient to carry the burden of the plaintiffs' statutory argument. The court reasoned that the first sentence (Sentence 1) did not apply because, as retirees, the plaintiffs were no longer employed by the City. Cahoon I, 2008...