Ehrle v. Bank Bldg. & Equipment Corp. of America
| Decision Date | 25 November 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 36356,36356 |
| Citation | 530 S.W.2d 482 |
| Parties | Charles F. EHRLE, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. BANK BUILDING & EQUIPMENT CORPORATION OF AMERICA, a corporation, Defendant-Appellant. . Louis District, Division Three |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Armstrong, Teasdale, Kramer & Vaughan, Fred Leicht, Jr., St. Louis, for defendant-appellant.
Deeba, DeStefano, Sauter & Herd, James J. Sauter, St. Louis, for plaintiff-respondent.
Defendant, Bank Building and Equipment Corporation of America (Bank Building), appeals from a declaratory judgment and award of damages entered by the St. Louis City Circuit Court in which the court found that Bank Building had wrongfully excluded plaintiff, Charles Ehrle, from participation in its Disability Program. Plaintiff was awarded damages in the sum of $46,091.44, including prejudgment interest. This core issue for us to resolve is whether or not plaintiff's acceptance of benefits under Bank Building's Pension Plan precluded his recovery under its Disability Program. We find, as did the trial court, that the Disability Program supplements and complements the company's pension trust plan and accordingly affirm the judgment of the trial court.
From the evidence the court could have reasonably found that plaintiff, age 63, had been employed by Bank Building for forty-two (42) years and that as a salaried employee he was covered by both the company pension plan and Disability Program. In 1960 plaintiff suffered an acute myocardial infarction and as a result thereof his health progressively declined and affected his work performance. The uncontroverted evidence shows that in July, 1967, the date his physician, Dr. Flavan, advised him to stop work, plaintiff was permanently incapable of engaging in any work or occupation which would be considered reasonable by virtue of his education, training and experience.
Because of plaintiff's health and his inability to properly supervise his department, the company lost money on two projects. Mr. William Cann, the president of Bank Building and a member of the Board of Directors, and Mr. L. J. Orabka, Chairman of the Board, knowing of plaintiff's health condition, discussed the monetary losses and management problems and concluded that management was not receiving the proper attention.
Shortly thereafter in May, 1967, plaintiff, at the request of Mr. Orabka, was asked, because of health reasons, to consider an early retirement. Mr. Orabka expressed to plaintiff that his health prevented him from carrying out is duties. After some discussion with his wife and Dr. Flavan, plaintiff personally delivered a letter dated May 29, 1967, to Mr. Orabka. The substance of the letter was that due to his physical condition he was requesting early retirement effective July 31, 1967. Mr. Orabka informed him as to the monetary amount of the pension he would receive; told him also that he would always be eligible for total disability if Social Security would accept it, and in order for Social Security to accept it, plaintiff would have to have a letter from his doctor. After an inquiry as to whether plaintiff could get such a letter, Mr. Orabka told plaintiff that when you get Social Security approval and the doctor's letter to come back to see him and there would be no problem. The trial court found that plaintiff considered the above discussion to be his application for benefits under Bank Building's Disability Program for Salaried and Commissioned Employees--at no time during this conversation did Mr. Orabka request that plaintiff fill out and file a written application for benefits under the Disability Program. In fact, from Mr. Cann's testimony it is questionable whether the company had any formal application to be used to apply for benefits under the Disability Program.
The minutes of the Board of Director's meeting on May 25, 1967, show that by reason of ill health, at the request of the Board, plaintiff was retired on the accelerated pension plan pursuant to § 4.02(B). Section 4.02(B) provided, in part, that if the company determines that a member under the Pension Plan is physically, mentally, or otherwise incapable of performing his duties after he is sixty (60) years of age and has at least twenty (20) years of service, the member could be given an accelerated retirement. In addition, § 4.02(B) provided a method of computing the monetary amount of the pension, and that the company's determination of incapacity was final.
On July 31, 1967, under the accelerated retirement provision of the pension trust, plaintiff began to receive $760.25 per month for life with sixty (60) payments guaranteed. On January 1, 1972, the amount of the pension increased by one-third to $1,013.00.
Subsequently plaintiff satisfied the Social Security Administration of his total disability by submitting to it the proper forms from his doctor after the required six (6) month waiting period. On May 27, 1968, the Social Security Board awarded plaintiff disability benefits up to the age of sixty-five (65). Additionally, plaintiff was also awarded back disability payments from August, 1967.
After having obtained the necessary documents from the Social Security Board, pursuant to his earlier meeting with Mr. Orabka, plaintiff took these documents to him to process his disability claim. When they discovered that the documents were incomplete, Mr. Orabka said that he would look into the matter and that plaintiff would hear from him.
On June 10, 1968, plaintiff furnished Mr. Orabka with the missing additional documents. Mr. Orabka responded that the Board had chosen to grant plaintiff an accelerated retirement rather than the early retirement which he had requested; that the company's Disability Program did not apply to plaintiff and consequently plaintiff's benefits were limited to the Pension Plan and Social Security.
A brochure distributed to Bank Building's employees described the purpose of the Disability Program as follows:
'If you are disabled, you may qualify for other company-supported benefits, such as your Bank Building Pension, social security, state disability benefits, or workmen's compensation. . . .
'The purpose of our Bank Building Disability Program is to guarantee you a steady income that can be determined in advance.' (Emphasis supplied.)
To be eligible for benefits under the Disability Program, one had to be (1) either compensated on a salaried basis or paid on a commission basis with a drawing account; (2) permanently disabled while an employee and by virtue of the disability be rendered incapable of engaging in any work or occupation which would be considered reasonable by virtue of one's training, education, and experience; and (3) apply for all other benefits to which one may be entitled with the proviso that failure to do so would forfeit all rights under the Disability Program.
Neither plaintiff nor Dr. Flavan was present at the trial of this cause, the latter because he was out of state at the time of trial and the former because he was advised by his physician not to appear. The testimony of both individuals was presented to the court by deposition. Mr. Orabka did not testify and was not present at the trial. In addition to the above recited facts, the following evidence was adduced at trial: (1) The uncontroverted testimony of Dr. Flavan was to the effect that based on reasonable medical certainty, plaintiff was completely disabled and was incapable of engaging in his occupration at the time of his retirement; (2) Mr. Ehrle testified that he was offered a job similar to his former position by the Bank of St. Louis in November or December of 1967 but he declined to accept the position because of his health; (3) Mr. Cann, president of Bank Building, testified that Mr. Ehrle was present when the Management Committee discussed the purpose of the Disability Program, which was 'to establish a degree of payment to employees that were ill and disabled beyond a normal type of salary program.' The beneficiaries of the program were to be employees of the company who were either temporarily disabled for short or long terms, or permanently disabled; (4) The Disability Program was discontinued by Bank Building on April 1, 1969. The program was replaced by a new disability plan which required the payment of insurance premiums for those employees covered by the plan. The parties agreed by stipulation to exclude the new plan from the court's consideration; (5) On May 1, 1974, Count II was submitted under a stipulation of facts. Plaintiff computed the amount of disability benefits to which he would be entitled if he were found eligible under the defendant's Disability Program. The amount of benefits through March, 1974, was computed to be $35,490.70, together with prejudgment interest of $10,600.74; (6) Defendant submitted a similar computation of benefits which was considerably less than plaintiff's computation for the reason that it credited plaintiff's 'full pay' from 1965 through July 31, 1967, as a set-off against the benefits accruing to plaintiff through March, 1974. The amount of benefits thus computed was $7,815.59.
On this appeal, Bank Building contends that the trial court erred in entering the declaratory judgment in favor of plaintiff because: (1) Plaintiff's acceptance of full pay for half-time work for over six (6) months indicated that he had elected a nondisability retirement instead of claiming disability benefits under the Disability Program, thus waiving any rights he may have otherwise asserted under the Disability...
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