State ex rel. Bolen v. City of Seattle, 36402

• Decision Date: 03 January 1963
• Docket Number: No. 36402,36402
• Citation: 377 P.2d 454,61 Wn.2d 196
• Parties: The STATE of Washington ex rel. Hazel S. BOLEN and Hazel V. Kenyon, Respondents, v. The CITY OF SEATTLE, a municipal corporation; Board of Trustees of the Relief and Pension Fund of the Police Department of Seattle; and Gordon Clinton, David Lavine, G. H. Culver, C. G. Erlandson, J. Ramon, Hugh Reily and William Campbell, as members thereof, Appellants.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

Page 196

61 Wn.2d 196

377 P.2d 454

The STATE of Washington ex rel. Hazel S. BOLEN and Hazel V Kenyon, Respondents, v. The CITY OF SEATTLE, a municipal corporation; Board of Trustees of the Relief and Pension Fund of the Police Department of Seattle; and Gordon Clinton, David Lavine, G H. Culver, C. G. Erlandson, J. Ramon, Hugh Reily and William Campbell, as members thereof, Appellants.

No. 36402.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

Jan. 3, 1963.

Rehearing Denied March 4, 1963.

A. C. VanSoelen, Corporation Counsel, Arthur T. Lane, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Seattle, for appellants.

Smith Troy and Don Cary Smith, Olympia, for respondents.

PER CURIAM.

The question here for decision is whether the statute, Laws of 1961, chapter 140, § 1, p. 1688, authorizing pensions to widows of police department members, both of whom were deceased before the effective date of the pension act, conflict with the thirty-fifth amendment to the state constitution (Art. 2 § 25) which prohibits the grant of extra compensation to named public servants after the services have been performed. The trial court found no conflict and ordered the widows' pensions paid. This was error.

The statute, so far as material, is:

'Whenever any member of the police department of any such city shall die, or shall have heretofore died, or whenever any such member who has been heretofore retired or who is hereafter retired for length of service or a disability, shall have died, or shall die, leaving a surviving spouse or child or children under the age of eighteen years, upon satisfactory proof of such facts made to it, the board shall order and direct that a pension equal to one-third of the amount of salary at any time hereafter attached to the position held by such member in the police department at the time of his death or retirement, not to exceed one-third of the salary of captain, shall be paid to the surviving spouse during the surviving spouse's life * * *.'

The thirty-fifth amendment to the state constitution is:

'The legislature shall never grant any extra compensation to any public officer, agent, employee, servant, or contractor, after the services shall have been rendered, or the contract entered into, nor shall the compensation of any public officer be increased or diminished during his term of office. Nothing in this section shall be deemed to prevent increases in pensions after such pensions shall have been granted.'

The facts are undisputed.

The husband of respondent Hazel S. Bolen retired from the Seattle police department in 1956 after more than thirty years of service and thereafter received the statutory pension until his death in 1960, when appellant city paid his respondent widow the statutory award of $1,000 pursuant to RCW 41.20.090. ¹

The husband of respondent Hazel V. Kenyon died in 1954 while on active duty, and, consequently, never received a pension, but the city paid his respondent widow the statutory award of $1,000.

Neither respondent had any right to a pension at the time of death of her husband and none has been paid. The lump sum statutory award of $1,000 is not a pension. There was no statutory scheme for a pension until the effective date of the statute which was June 8, 1961. A pension is deferred compensation for services rendered. Bakenhus v. Seattle, 48 Wash.2d 695, 296 P.2d 536.

While the constitution as amended authorizes legislation...