Mattson v. Flynn
| Decision Date | 21 January 1944 |
| Docket Number | No. 33612.,33612. |
| Citation | 13 N.W.2d 11,216 Minn. 354 |
| Parties | MATTSON v. FLYNN et al. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, St. Louis County; Mark Nolan, Judge.
Declaratory judgment action by Sarah Mattson against H. E. Flynn and others, constituting the Board of Trustees of, and Julius Schmahl, State Treasurer, ex officio Treasurer of, Teachers' Insurance and Retirement Fund, etc., to determine plaintiff's rights and status as a member of the fund. From an order sustaining a demurrer to plaintiff's petition, plaintiff appeals.
Reversed.
Charles T. Wangensteen, of Chisholm, for appellant.
J. A. A. Burnquist, Atty. Gen., and Charles E. Houston and William C. Green, Asst. Attys. Gen., for respondent.
Appeal from an order sustaining a demurrer to plaintiff's petition for a declaratory judgment under Minn.St.1941, c. 555, Mason St.1940 Supp. §§ 9455-1 to 9455-16, to determine her rights and status as a member of the Teachers' Insurance and Retirement Fund created by L.1915, c. 199.
The facts upon which plaintiff relies are undisputed. A teacher by profession, she became a member of the Fund on March 18, 1918, with a teaching credit of 13 1/7 years within the state. She continued teaching in the public schools of Minnesota until the end of the school year of 1930, thereby completing in excess of 26 years of teaching service. She qualified as a member of the Fund by paying the required assessments until approximately July 1931. At that time she became a paid-up member of the Fund. On July 20, 1931, she filed with defendants as members of the board of trustees of the Fund her application for retirement under the 25-year plan provided for in the 1915 act. The board duly approved her application for retirement and granted her an annuity with payments to begin as of October 1, 1931. Shortly before the effective date of her grant, she informed defendants that she had accepted a teaching position in the Canal Zone. On September 9, 1931, she was advised that, since she would be engaged in teaching during the school year of 1931-1932, she would not be entitled to annuity benefits as of October 1, 1931, and no payments were made to her thereunder. She continued to teach in the Canal Zone for approximately ten years. Upon returning to Minnesota, she made demand in January 1942 for payment of the claimed accrued annuity from July 20, 1931, the date of her retirement from teaching in the public schools of Minnesota, until January 1942. Defendants denied her petition for accrued payments but advised plaintiff that she would be entitled to receive her annuity as of the date she ceased teaching in the Canal Zone and was no longer employed as a teacher in the public schools.
Plaintiff contends that she was entitled to receive her annuity payments under the retirement plan during all the time she was engaged as a teacher in the Canal Zone, and that such payments could not be lawfully suspended by her employment as a teacher outside the state of Minnesota; that the only limitation expressed in the act is that the annuitant upon retirement shall not return to teaching in the public schools of Minnesota. Defendants urge that this restriction is not limited to teaching within the public schools of Minnesota, but that the legislature also intended to include therein teaching in the public schools outside the state, and that by engaging in such work in the Canal Zone plaintiff has forfeited her right to annuity payments during the time she was so employed.
1. The principal difficulty here is the use of ambiguous and obscure language in L.1915, c. 199, § 9, which in so far as here pertinent, is as follows:
* * * * * *
(Italics supplied.)
By virtue of authority granted to the board of trustees to prorate the pension disbursements, the amount of the annual pension payable to plaintiff and to others similarly situated was reduced in 1928 from $500 to $250 per year.
Section 9 of the 1915 act was amended by L.1925, c. 404, so as to require that at least one of the last five years of teaching immediately preceding retirement be in the schools of Minnesota instead of the entire last five-year period as originally provided. L.1929, c. 163, further amended the act by providing for the substitution of the commissioner of insurance as a member of the board of trustees, in lieu of the attorney general who had theretofore been one of the five members constituting such board. By L.1931, c. 406, the original act was repealed and a more comprehensive retirement law passed. The 1931 act protected members of the fund created by the 1915 act. The suspension provision under consideration remained the same from its enactment in 1915 until its repeal. It was omitted from the 1931 act, but plaintiff's right to the annuity payments are to be determined by the provisions of the 1915 act as amended.
We cannot agree that the language of § 9 is clear and unequivocal so as to apply the rule that a statute is its own best expositor. 6 Dunnell, Dig. & Supp. § 8938; Oppegaard v. Board of Com'rs, 120 Minn. 443, 139 N.W. 949, 43 L.R.A.,N.S., 936. On the contrary, we find the language obscure and ambiguous. A construction thereof is required to ascertain the true intention of the legislature. 6 Dunnell, Dig. & Supp. § 8940 and cases cited. A member of the present attorney general's staff has written an opinion in conflict with those of his predecessors in office. The fact that able lawyers, after careful study of the provisions of the statute, have taken opposite views as to its meaning supports the conclusion that the language itself does not explicitly convey the intention of the legislature and that construction is necessary.
2. In support of her position, plaintiff relies upon the definition of the word "teacher" appearing in § 1 of the act as one of limitation. On the contrary, defendants contend that the use of the word "include" in connection with the word "teacher" as it appears in § 1 is a term of enlargement and not one of limitation as urged by plaintiff; that the term was intended to include teachers in public schools both without and within the state. A definition of "teacher" or the word "include" does not materially assist us in solving the problem of construction involved.
"* * * In construing a statute it is unsafe to divide it, by a process of etymological dissection, into separate words, to apply to the words thus separated from their context, some particular definition given by lexicographers, and then to reconstruct the statute on the basis of these definitions." 6 Dunnell, Dig. & Supp. § 8951; International Trust Co. v. American L. & T. Co., 62 Minn. 501, 503, 65 N.W. 78, 632.
3. Defendants' contention that plaintiff's annuity payments were properly suspended during the period she taught in the Canal Zone is based primarily upon the language in the last paragraph of § 9, quoted above, and particularly the clause "return to the work of teaching in said public schools." They urge that this clause was intended to mean "return to the work of teaching in the public schools both outside and within the state of Minnesota." The first paragraph of § 9 specifies the conditions under which a teacher may qualify for retirement. One requirement is that the teacher shall have rendered 20 years or more of service as a teacher in the public schools, a portion of which may have been spent in public schools without the state. It must be conceded, therefore, that the term "public schools" as there used contemplated and referred to public schools other than and in addition to those of Minnesota. The question then arises whether the clause "return to the work of teaching in said public schools" as found in the last paragraph of § 9 refers to public schools both without and within the state. Defendants contend that such a conclusion is correct as a matter of proper grammatical construction, since the term "said public schools" refers to the general antecedent, "the public schools," found in the beginning of the section, rather than to the restrictive term "the public schools of this state" appearing farther on in the paragraph. Our duty in this regard is manifestly to ascertain the true intention of the legislature, and to this end we should consider the legislative history of the act, the subject matter as a whole, the purpose of the legislation, and objects intended to be secured thereby. It is true, the language of a statute is to be construed in accordance with the rules of grammar whenever possible. This rule does not prevail, however, if such construction is contrary to the obvious intention of the legislature. 6 Dunnell, Dig. § 8972; County of Sibley v. Village of Gibbon, 115 Minn. 56, 131 N.W. 786; State v. Minneapolis Milk Co., 124 Minn. 34, 144 N.W. 417, 51 L.R.A.,N.S., 244.
The purpose of the 1915 act as expressed in its title was to establish a fund for the benefit of teachers retired from the public schools and other institutions therein defined which were supported wholly or in part by the state of Minnesota. It seems plain that...
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