Firemen's Retirement System of St. Louis v. City of St. Louis, 68025

• Decision Date: 05 December 1995
• Docket Number: No. 68025,68025
• Citation: 911 S.W.2d 679
• Parties: FIREMEN'S RETIREMENT SYSTEM OF ST. LOUIS, Plaintiff/Respondent, v. CITY OF ST. LOUIS, William C. Duffee and Edward Karch, Defendants/Appellants.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 679

911 S.W.2d 679

FIREMEN'S RETIREMENT SYSTEM OF ST. LOUIS, Plaintiff/Respondent, v. CITY OF ST. LOUIS, William C. Duffee and Edward Karch,

Defendants/Appellants.

No. 68025.

Missouri Court of Appeals,

Eastern District,

Division Two.

Dec. 5, 1995.

Tyrone A. Taborn, City Counselor, Edward J. Hanlon, Deputy City Counselor, Patricia

A. Hageman, Asst. City Counselor, St. Louis, for appellant.

Daniel G. Tobben, Jerry J. Murphy, Reid, Murphy and Tobben, L.L.C., St. Louis, for respondent.

CRANDALL, Judge.

Defendants, The City of St. Louis (City) and City's Director of Personnel, William Duffe, appeal from the judgment of the trial court, in a court-tried case, which granted declaratory judgment in favor of plaintiff, The Firemen's Retirement System of St. Louis, and which enjoined City and its Director of Personnel from employing as a fire fighter defendant, Edward Karch, ¹ who was retired from City's fire department and receiving retirement benefits. We reverse.

Our review of a court-tried case is guided by Murphy v. Carron, 536 S.W.2d 30, 32 (Mo. banc 1976). In the case before us, the evidence was submitted to the court in the form of stipulated facts and documents.

The evidence established that Karch retired from City's fire department in October 1993, after 30 years of service as a fire fighter. He became the beneficiary of The Firemen's Retirement System of St. Louis (FRS) and received his pension benefits. In early 1994, City rehired Karch as a fire fighter. In March 1994, Karch elected to participate in the Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) and attempted to alter his beneficiary status within FRS. FRS denied his application for participation in the DROP program. City refused to terminate Karch, despite FRS' requests to do so.

FRS brought the present action against City, City's Director of Personnel, and Karch. Count I sought a declaration that City was prohibited from hiring Karch as a fire fighter. Count II sought injunctive relief prohibiting City and its agents from hiring Karch and ordering the termination of Karch. After a court-tried case, the court entered the following Order and Judgment:

Firefighters must be members of [FRS], but a person cannot be a member if he or she is "in receipt of a retirement allowance" because such benefits render the recipient a beneficiary rather than a member. Thus, Karch is not eligible to serve as a firefighter for the City so long as he is receiving retirement benefits. He is restrained from working as a firefighter for the City of St. Louis while he receives such benefits, and the City and Personnel Director are restrained from employing him as a firefighter during that time.

(Citations omitted).

City's sole point on appeal charges error in the trial court's conclusion that the ordinances governing FRS prohibited City from rehiring Karch as a fire fighter, once Karch received pension benefits from FRS.

Section 87.125, RSMo (1994) authorizes cities to provide for the pensioning of fire fighters. Firemen's Retirement System of St. Louis v. City of St. Louis, 789 S.W.2d 484, 486 (Mo. banc 1990). City created FRS by enacting chapter 4.18 of the City code. City's ordinances have counterpart provisions in the Missouri statutes which are substantially identical to the ordinances. See Chapter 87, RSMo (1994).

In interpreting ordinances, the appellate court gives words their plain and ordinary meaning, by considering the entire act and its purposes, and by seeking to avoid unjust, absurd, unreasonable, confiscatory, or oppressive results. Firemen's Retirement System of St. Louis v. City of St. Louis, 754 S.W.2d 21, 25 (Mo.App.1988). The appellate court will not impute an intent upon the lawmakers that is not evident on the face of the ordinance. Id.

Section 87.130(1), RSMo (1994) states that "[a]ll persons who are firemen shall be members [of FRS] as a condition of their employment...." See also § 4.18.020, St. Louis City Ordinances. Section 87.130(2), RSMo (1994) requires that "if any member becomes a beneficiary, he shall thereupon cease to be a member...." See also § 4.18.25, St. Louis City Ordinances. Section 87.120(4) defines beneficiary, in pertinent part, as "any person in receipt of a retirement allowance...." See also § 4.18.010(D), St. Louis City Ordinances.

FRS argues that based upon these ordinances, City did not have the authority to hire a fire fighter who was in beneficiary status, because a beneficiary of FRS is precluded from also being a member, a condition of employment as a fire fighter. In its petition for declaratory judgment, FRS' prayer requested the trial court to declare (1) that a retired fire fighter who was a beneficiary of FRS could not be a member of FRS, (2) that City's hiring of Karch was unauthorized and illegal, (3) that Karch's employment be terminated; and to make such other orders as the court deemed just and appropriate. In entering judgment in favor of FRS, the trial court declared that Karch was "not eligible to serve as a firefighter for the City so long as he [was] receiving retirement benefits." Reading the plain language of the ordinances, the trial court was correct in finding that the ordinances prohibited Karch from being a member of FRS at the same time he was a beneficiary of FRS.

The judgment of the trial court, however, is incomplete. The petition for declaratory relief also stated that Karch "applied for a program known as the 'DROP' program and ... thereby attempted to alter his beneficiary status within [FRS]." ² Here, the ordinances do not prohibit a fire fighter from becoming a member of FRS once he or she...