Harris v. City of Allen Park, Docket No. 126634
| Decision Date | 18 February 1992 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 126634 |
| Parties | James A. HARRIS, Stanley A. Bessel, Ruth L. Miner, Shirley N. Tauck, James Sharp and Richard Wigginton, on behalf of themselves and other persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CITY OF ALLEN PARK and City of Allen Park Retirement Board, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US |
Burley, Barton, Misko & Falzone, P.C. by Thomas J. Misko, Trenton, for plaintiffs-appellees.
Pagnucco, Kruse & Tamsen by Kenneth D. Kruse, Allen Park, and Feiler, Joelson, Lakind & Rosenberg by Michael H. Feiler, Farmington Hills, for defendants-appellants.
Before MURPHY, P.J., and CAVANAGH and CONNOR, JJ.
We granted defendants' application for leave to appeal from the February 14, 1990, order of the trial court denying defendants' motion for partial summary disposition that alleged that plaintiffs' action was time-barred for certain members of the plaintiff class. We reverse the trial court's order denying summary disposition.
On January 1, 1984, defendant City of Allen Park amended its retirement plan, increasing the level of benefits. Before that time, persons retiring, and particularly those terminating their service with the city and accepting a lump-sum distribution of vested benefits, received the money contributed by the city to the plan, plus interest at three percent a year. In this suit, plaintiffs contend that the rate of interest was much lower than the rate of earnings actually generated by investments made by the defendant retirement board.
Plaintiffs filed this case as a class action involving two groups. One group is comprised of those employees who retired from city employment before July 1, 1983, and receive periodic pension benefits. This group is represented by plaintiffs Harris, Bessel, Miner, and Tauck (Harris group). The other group includes those former employees, represented by plaintiffs Sharp and Wigginton (Sharp group), who left city employment before retirement and received lump-sum payments of their contributions to the retirement system.
It is plaintiffs' claim that the interest from their contributions was used to increase the size of the retirement fund as a whole. This alleged misappropriation of contributed funds was then used to award increased pension benefits to those persons who retired from the city after June 1983 on the basis of changes in the terms of the retirement system that became effective in January 1984. It was alleged in plaintiffs' complaint that defendants breached contractual rights and violated fiduciary duties by not paying plaintiffs all the interest generated from their individual contributions to the retirement system.
Defendants filed a motion for partial summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(7), arguing that the six-year period of limitation for contract actions, M.C.L. Sec. 600.5807(8); M.S.A. Sec. 27A.5807(8), barred the actions of those plaintiffs who received lump-sum payments, the Sharp group, six years before this action was filed. Similarly, the defendants argued that any payments of periodic benefits to plaintiffs in the Harris group made six years before this case was filed would also be time-barred.
In opposition to the motion, plaintiffs argued that their cause of action did not accrue until January 1, 1984, when the increased benefits to subsequent retirees went into effect. In support of their motion, plaintiffs relied upon the provisions of the city charter and collective bargaining agreements produced by defendants.
On the basis of plaintiffs' complaint, the trial court agreed that the cause of action did not accrue until January 1984. Accordingly, the motion for summary disposition was denied.
Defendants argued below that summary disposition was available under MCR 2.116(C)(7). When reviewing a motion under that rule, the plaintiff's well-pleaded allegations are accepted as true and are construed in the plaintiff's favor. Kassab v. Michigan Basic Property Ins. Ass'n, 185 Mich.App. 206, 210, 460 N.W.2d 300 (1990), lv. gtd 439 Mich. 864 (1991). If the pleadings demonstrate that a party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, or if affidavits or other documentary evidence show that there is no genuine issue of material fact, the trial court must render judgment without delay. Paterek v. 6600 Limited, 186 Mich.App. 445, 447, 465...
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