Packer v. Board of Retirement of Los Angeles County Peace Officers' Retirement System

• Decision Date: 25 April 1950
• Citation: 35 Cal.2d 212,217 P.2d 660
• Parties: PACKER v. BOARD OF RETIREMENT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY PEACE OFFICERS' RETIREMENT SYSTEM et al. L. A. 21038.
• Court: California Supreme Court

Page 660

217 P.2d 660

35 Cal.2d 212

PACKER v. BOARD OF RETIREMENT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY PEACE OFFICERS' RETIREMENT SYSTEM et al.

L. A. 21038.

Supreme Court of California, in Bank.

April 25, 1950.

Hearing Denied May 25, 1950.

Gordon M. Snyder, Los Angeles, for appellant.

Harold W. Kennedy, County Counsel, and Edward H. Gaylord, Deputy County Counsel, Los Angeles, for respondents.

GIBSON, Chief Justice.

The widow of Glen J. Packer, a retired peace officer, brought this proceeding in mandamus to compel respondent board to pay her a pension. She has appealed from the judgment of dismissal entered upon the sustaining of a demurrer to her petition.

The County Peace Officers' Retirement Law, enacted in 1931, provided for a widow's pension if the officer had been disabled in the line of duty. Stats. 1931, ch. 268, § 11, Deering's Gen. Laws 1931, Act 5848, § 11. The Retirement Law is now a part of the Government Code, § 31900 et seq. In 1937 it was amended to extend pension rights to the widow or children of any peace officer who died after retirement. ¹ The law was again amended in 1941 to provide that an officer might obtain a pension for his widow by exercising an option to take a lesser pension for himself during his life, and all other provisions for a widow's pension were eliminated except where the officer died as a result of a service-connected disability or was retired for such a cause. ² The Packers were married in 1905, and in 1926 he commenced working as a deputy sheriff for Los Angeles County. He retired in 1946 at the age of sixty-three after serving the number of years required to entitle him to a pension. It is not claimed that Packer ever exercised the option which would have entitled his widow to a pension, or that his retirement was due to a service-connected disability, or that his death, which occurred in 1947, was the result of such a disability.

The 1941 amendment was part of a substantial revision of the Retirement Law which, as we shall see, embraced both advantages and disadvantages to county peace officers. It applies to all officers, who, like Packer, were then in active service and not eligible for retirement. Although it was held in Chaney v. Los Angeles County Peace Officers' Retirement Board, 59 Cal.App.2d 413, 138 P.2d 735, that a widow was entitled to a pension under the 1937 act where her husband retired before and died after the effective date of the 1941 amendment, such is not the case here.

If the act as amended in 1937 had remained unchanged, petitioner would clearly be entitled to a pension, and the question is whether application to petitioner of the 1941 amendment constituted an impairment of the county's contractual obligations. The determination of this question depends upon the nature and extent of the contractual obligations arising out of Packer's continued employment after the enactment of the 1937 statute.

The general problem of the power of a governmental body to revise its pension system was recently considered in Kern v. City of Long Beach, 29 Cal.2d 848, 179 P.2d 799, where, as here, the pension law in effect at the time the employee performed his duties contained no express reservation of the right to repeal or modify the existing plan. We there held that a public employee, as a part of his compensation, obtained a vested right to a pension upon entering his duties under such a statute and that the right, once acquired, could not be wholly destroyed by repeal of the pension law prior to time for his retirement. It was recognized, however, that the employee was not entitled to any fixed or definite benefits, but only to a substantial pension, and that the statutory language was subject to the implied qualification that the governing body may make reasonable modifications and changes in the system. Kern v. City of Long Beach, 29 Cal.2d 848, 855, 179 P.2d 799. As stated in the Kern case: 'The ruling permitting modification of pensions is a necessary one since pension systems must be kept flexible to permit adjustments in accord with changing conditions and at the same time maintain the integrity of the system and carry out its beneficient policy.' 29 Cal.2d at pp. 854-855, 179 P.2d at page 803.

Petitioner does not dispute these principles but asserts, first, that her husband's service under the 1937 provision gave her, as a third party beneficiary, a separate, vested right to a widow's pension which the 1941 amendment wholly destroyed, contrary to the decision in the Kern case, and, second, that even if she did not have a separate right, the 1941 amendment exceeded any permissible modification of her husband's pension rights.

Did petitioner have a separate vested right to a pension?

It may be conceded that a widow's rights are vested after her pension becomes payable and that she may then maintain an action to enforce the obligation of the governmental body. Kavanagh v. Board of Police Pension Fund Comm'rs, 134 Cal. 50, 66 P. 36. It does not necessarily follow, however, that petitioner had a separate right which vested prior to the 1941 amendment. As stated above, the decisions make it clear that pensions for public employees are based upon the theory that such a pension is an integral part of the employee's compensation under his contract of employment, and that one of the primary purposes of offering a pension, as additional compensation, is to induce competent persons to enter and remain in public service. Kern v. City of Long Beach, 29 Cal.2d 848, 851-853, 855, 856, 179 P.2d 799; French v. French, 17 Cal.2d 775, 777, 112 P.2d 235, 134 A.L.R. 366; Dryden v. Board of Pension Com'rs of City of Los Angeles, 6 Cal.2d 575, 579, 59 P.2d 104. A pension to an employee's widow, however, is not given because of services rendered byher to the governmental body but is one of the elements of compensation held out to her husband.

In Sweesy v. Los Angeles County Peace Officer's Retirement Board, 17 Cal.2d 356, 363, 110 P.2d 37, the granting of a pension to the widow of an officer who had previously retired was upheld on the ground that the widow's pension was merely an increase of benefits to the officer who already had a pensionable status. Although the court in that case recognized that the retired employee had vested pension rights, 17 Cal.2d at page 361, 110 P.2d at page 39, the status of the widow's right was carefully distinguished, 17 Cal.2d at page 362, 110 P.2d at page 40: 'It is not to be understood from the foregoing, however, that the provision for an increase in benefits to the retired member by means of a pension to his widow becomes a vested right prior to the happening of a contingency upon which the payment of the widow's pension depends. As aptly shown by the decision in Jordan v. Retirement Board, supra (35 Cal.App.2d 653, 96 P.2d 973), the grant of a pension to the member's widow is an increase of benefits which may be taken away before the right vests by the happening of the event of calling for the fulfillment of the grant. In this case the provision for pensions to members' widows benefits all members, whether on active or retired duty; but as to any prospective grantee of the pension it is an inchoate right which may be taken away at any time before it becomes vested in her.'

The Jordan case, cited in the Sweesy opinion, held that a provision for a widow's pension, adopted after retirement of her husband, could be repealed prior to his death. In answer to the widow's contention that the provision for a pension to her became a part of her husband's contract of employment and could not be taken away, the court stated that 'a pensioner has no vested right to a specific sum as a pension, but that sum may be increased or decreased according to correspondent increases or decreases in the salary of the rank upon which the pension is based.' 35 Cal.App.2d at page 658, 96 P.2d at page 976. Another line of cases upheld revision of a pension system although the substituted plan, by eliminating a lump sum payment to legal representatives, constituted a complete repeal of benefits to certain classes of persons who would have received money under the former provision. Pennie v. Reis, 80 Cal. 266, 22 P. 176, affirmed in 132 U.S. 464, 10 S.Ct. 149, 33 L.Ed. 426; Clarke v. Reis, 87 Cal. 543, 25 P. 759; Clarke v. Police & Health Ins. Board, 123 Cal. 24, 55 P. 576.

It is apparent, therefore, that the cases have not treated provisions for pensions to widows of public employees as separate, vested rights. Rather, a widow's interest, prior to her husband's death, has been considered to be merely a part of the husband's pension benefits and as such subject to being wholly eliminated, provided, of course, that the total change in the husband's pension rights does not exceed the permissible bounds of a modification. It may be conceded that the husband's pension rights derived from his employment during marriage are community property, but this does not furnish any basis for the claim that the widow has a separate, vested right to a pension that is different from her community interest in her husband's pension rights.

Petitioner argues that her claim to a separate, vested right finds support by analogy in the cases construing life insurance policies which hold that the named beneficiary...