Parkhurst v. City of Everett, 34141

• Decision Date: 21 November 1957
• Docket Number: No. 34141,34141
• Parties: Paul PARKHURST, Appellant, v. CITY OF EVERETT, a municipal corporation; Lawrence Longfield, C. L. Hatcher, Howard Vognild, John Sugars and George Culmback, the members of and constituting the Board of Trustees of the Firemen's Pension Fund of the City of Everett, Respondents.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

Page 292

51 Wn.2d 292

318 P.2d 327

Paul PARKHURST, Appellant, v. CITY OF EVERETT, a municipal corporation; Lawrence

Longfield, C. L. Hatcher, Howard Vognild, John Sugars and

George Culmback, the members of and constituting the Board

of Trustees of the Firemen's Pension Fund of the City of

Everett, Respondents.

No. 34141.

Supreme Court of Washington, Department 1.

Nov. 21, 1957.

Clarence J. Coleman, Everett, for appellant.

Leslie R. Cooper, Everett, for respondents.

WEAVER, Justice.

The trial court held that plaintiff's second amended complaint did not state a cause of action. Defendants' demurrer having been sustained, plaintiff appeals from a judgment dismissing his action with prejudice.

January 21, 1928, plaintiff became a member of the Everett fire department. After more than twenty-five years of service, he retired voluntarily on October 1, 1953. For more than one year preceding his retirement, he held the rank of assistant chief at a salary of $390 per month. At the time of retirement, plaintiff had not attained the age of fifty-five years. He has received a pension of $125 a month since his retirement. He now contends (1) that he is entitled to a money judgment for the difference between one-half of his salary at the time of retirement ($195) and $125 a month; and (2) that he is entitled to an order directing the proper city officials to pay him a pension of $195 a month hereafter.

Generally, pension rights are determined by the statutes in effect at the time the employee enters public service, together with such statutory changes as may be recognized under the doctrine of Bakenhus v. City of Seattle, 1956, 48 Wash.2d 695, 296 P.2d 536.

Laws of 1919, chapter 196, § 4, was in effect when plaintiff entered the employ of the city. It reads as follows:

'Whenever any person, at the taking effect of this act, or thereafter, shall have been duly appointed and has served for a period of twenty years or more, ten years of which shall have been consecutive immediately preceding the end of such period, as a member in any capacity or any rank whatever of the regularly constituted fire department of any such city of town which may be subject to the provisions of this act, the board shall be empowered to order and direct that such person may, after becoming fifty-five years of age, be retired from such fire department, and the board shall retire any member so entitled as hereinabove provided for, upon his written request for same, and such member so retired shall be paid from such fund a monthly pension equal to one-half the amount of salary attached to the rank which he may have held in said fire department for one year next preceding the date of such retirement. * * *' (Italics ours.) (Numbers inserted for reference.)

Plaintiff contends that under the 1919 statute the requirement that a fireman must be fifty-five years of age at the time of retirement is limited to involuntary retirement; that a review and consideration of prior and subsequent legislation support this conclusion; that 'after becoming fifty-five years of age' is

'* * * an adverbial clause of time modifying and limiting its last antecedent, the verb 'may' in that the board 'may' not act in any event until after the fireman becomes fifty-five years of age'; (App.Br., p. 21-22)

and that the words 'so entitled as hereinabove provided for,' do not include nor refer to 'after becoming fifty-five years of age.'

Defendants, on the other hand, contend that the requirement that a fireman be fifty-five years of age before he may retire under the 1919 statute, quoted supra, applies to both voluntary and involuntary retirement; and that plaintiff, therefore, must have retired under the provisions of Laws of 1935, chapter 39, § 2, which permit voluntary retirement after twenty-five years of service (which plaintiff had), regardless of attained age.

We find it neither necessary nor proper to consider legislation prior or subsequent to the 1919 statute. If the words employed in the declaring part of a statute be plain, unambiguous, and well understood according to their natural and ordinary sense and meaning, the statute furnishes a rule of construction beyond which a court cannot go. Tsutakawa v. Kumamoto, 1909, 53 Wash. 231, 101 P. 869, 102 P. 766. We believe the 1919 statute, quoted supra, is clear and unambiguous; therefore, we must find its meaning within the four corners of the statute itself.

The statute in question is a single compound-complex sentence having three coordinated clauses. For clarity, we numbered each of the coordinated clauses when we quoted the statute. This compound sentence is rendered complex by reason of certain subordinate clauses joined to the...