Tibbles v. Teachers Ret. Sys. of Ga.

• Decision Date: 13 July 2015
• Docket Number: No. S15A0366.,S15A0366.
• Citation: 297 Ga. 557,775 S.E.2d 527
• Parties: TIBBLES v. TEACHERS RETIREMENT SYSTEM OF GEORGIA et al.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

297 Ga. 557

775 S.E.2d 527

TIBBLES

v.TEACHERS RETIREMENT SYSTEM OF GEORGIA et al.

No. S15A0366.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

July 13, 2015.

Reconsideration Denied July 23, 2015.

David Charles Ates, Atlanta, George H. Carley, Hardy Gregory, Jr., Antoinette Davis Gregory, Carley, Gregory & Gregory, Cordele, William Ledford Nabors, Jr., Nabors Law Group, LLC, Atlanta, for appellant.

Annette M. Cowart, Christopher Andrew McGraw, Sr. Asst. Attys. Gen., Bryan Keith Webb, Asst. Atty. Gen., Samuel S. Olens, Atty. Gen., for appellees.

Opinion

BLACKWELL, Justice.

Following 31 years of service as a teacher in the public schools, Carol Tibbles retired in April 1994. She is a member of the Teachers Retirement System of Georgia, and as such, she is entitled by law to annual retirement allowance in an amount

equal to 2 percent of [her] average compensation over the two consecutive years of membership service producing the highest such average, multiplied by the number of [her] years of creditable service, not to exceed 40.

OCGA § 47–3–120(a)(2). To calculate the amount of the allowance to which Tibbles was entitled, the System looked to the compensation that she earned in the 24 consecutive calendar months beginning with February 1992, and it applied the statutory formula to that compensation. It appears that the System consistently has paid Tibbles an allowance in an amount consistent with that calculation.

Tibbles claims, however, that the System miscalculated the amount to which she is entitled. First, she says, the statutory reference to “two consecutive years” does not mean 24 consecutive calendar months. She argues that it instead means 730 consecutive calendar days, unless one of those days is a leap day, in which case, it means 731 consecutive calendar days. Second, Tibbles says, the statutory reference to “average compensation” refers to compensation paid, not compensation earned, in the pertinent two years. So, rather than looking to her compensation earned in the 24 consecutive calendar months beginning with February 1992, Tibbles urges, the System should have calculated her allowance based upon the compensation that she was paid from Thursday, December 5, 1991 through Friday, December 4, 1993, including the paychecks that she received on the first and last days of that period, the former of which was for her work as a teacher in November 1991.

Tibbles sued the System and its trustees, seeking legal and equitable relief for the alleged miscalculation of her annual retirement allowance. The trial court awarded summary judgment to the System, finding that the System adhered to its own rules and policies in calculating the amount to which Tibbles is entitled, and concluding that those rules and policies comport with OCGA § 47–3–120(a)(2). Tibbles appeals, and we affirm.

1. This case concerns the meaning of OCGA § 47–3–120(a)(2), and so, we begin with the familiar and settled principles that inform our consideration of statutory meaning. “A statute draws it meaning, of course, from its text.” Chan v. Ellis, 296 Ga. 838, 839(1), 770 S.E.2d 851 (2015) (citation omitted). When we read the statutory text, “we must presume that the General Assembly meant what it said and said what it meant,” Deal v. Coleman, 294 Ga. 170, 172(1)(a), 751 S.E.2d 337 (2013) (citation and punctuation omitted), and so, “we must read the statutory text in its most natural and reasonable way, as an ordinary speaker of the English language would.” FDIC v. Loudermilk, 295 Ga. 579, 588(2), 761 S.E.2d 332 (2014) (citation and punctuation omitted). “The common and customary usages of the words are important, but so is their context.” Chan, 296 Ga. at 839(1), 770 S.E.2d 851 (citations omitted). “For context, we may look to the other provisions of the same statute, the structure and history of the whole statute, and the other law—constitutional, statutory, and common law alike—that forms the legal background of the statutory provision in question.” May v. State, 295 Ga. 388, 391–392, 761 S.E.2d 38 (2014) (citations omitted).

Even reading the statutory text in this way, we sometimes may find that the statutory text naturally and reasonably can be understood in more than one way. When such a genuine ambiguity appears, it usually is for the courts to resolve the ambiguity by ascertaining the most natural and reasonable understanding of the text. See State v. Mulkey, 252 Ga. 201, 202–204(2), 312 S.E.2d 601 (1984). But when it appears that the General Assembly has committed the resolution of such an ambiguity to the discretion and expertise of an agency of the Executive Branch that is charged with the administration of the statute, the usual rule may not apply. In those instances, the courts must defer to the way in which the agency has resolved the ambiguity in question, so long as the agency has resolved the ambiguity in the proper exercise of its lawful discretion, and so long as the agency has resolved it upon terms that are reasonable in light of the statutory text. See Cook v. Glover, 295 Ga. 495, 500, 761 S.E.2d 267 (2014). See also Center for a Sustainable Coast v. Coastal Marshlands Protection Committee, 284 Ga. 736, 741 (2), 670 S.E.2d 429 (2008). This approach is not a new one.¹ Suttles v. Northwestern Mut. Life Ins. Co., 193 Ga. 495, 515(4), 19 S.E.2d 396 (1942) (noting that a “[reasonable] administrative interpretation and practice, continued for a long period, should be accepted as controlling,” but “only when the law is ambiguous and susceptible of different interpretations”). It reflects an acknowledgment that the General Assembly properly may leave some matters to the discretion of the Executive Branch, see Dept. of Transp. v. City of Atlanta, 260 Ga. 699, 703(1), 398 S.E.2d 567 (1990), as well as a recognition that some ambiguities may be better resolved by officers and agencies of the Executive Branch, who can weigh the policy implications of the ways in which an ambiguity reasonably might be resolved in a way that courts cannot, and who can bring to bear specialized knowledge and expertise that the courts lack. See Bentley v. Chastain, 242 Ga. 348, 350–351(1), 249 S.E.2d 38 (1978).

And for the most part, our approach is consistent with the approach adopted by the United States Supreme Court in Chevron, USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984),² as this Court recently acknowledged. See Cook, 295 Ga. at 500, 761 S.E.2d 267. With these principles in mind, we turn now to the questions of statutory meaning presented in this case.

2. According to OCGA § 47–3–120(a)(2), the amount of an annual retirement allowance must be calculated with reference to “average compensation over the two consecutive years of membership service producing the highest such average,” OCGA § 47–3–120(a)(2) (emphasis supplied), and the parties dispute what is meant by “two consecutive years.” As we noted earlier, Tibbles says that “two consecutive years” means 730 consecutive calendar days, unless one is a leap day, in which event, it means 731 consecutive calendar days. For that reason, Tibbles argues, the statutory period of “two consecutive years” can commence on any day. As reflected in its own administrative rules and practices, however, the System understands the statutory reference to “two consecutive years” to mean 24 consecutive calendar months. See, e.g., Ga. Comp. R. & Regs., Rule 513–5–1–.08 (“The calculation of average salary for retirement purposes shall allow the use of the salary earned during any twenty-four (24) consecutive months producing the highest such average....”); Rule 513–5–1.14(1) (to calculate amount to which member is entitled, “[s]elect a two-year period of twenty-four (24) consecutive months with the highest salary”).³ A calendar month, of course, necessarily commences on the first day of a month named in the calendar.

(a) To begin, we consider whether the meaning of the statutory reference to “two consecutive years” is unambiguous. Standing alone, the term could be reasonably understood in more than one way. By definition, a “year” is a period of twelve consecutive months, as the System contends, and it also is a period of 365 consecutive days (or 366 days in leap years), just as Tibbles argues. In its ordinary usage, however, the term “year”—whether the “year” is measured in months or days—is susceptible of different meanings so far as the specific points on the calendar at which a “year” can be said to begin and end. See State ex rel. Gareau v. Stillman, 18 Ohio St.2d 63, 247 N.E.2d 461, 462 (1969) (when used with reference to “a period of 365 days,” the “word ‘year’ ... is susceptible of different meanings so far as the time within which the 365–day period should begin and end”). See also Federal Trust Bank v. C.W. Matthews Contracting Co., 312 Ga.App. 200, 202(1) & n. 8, 718 S.E.2d 63 (2011) (although a “month” can mean “the period from a day of one month to the corresponding day of the next month,” it also can mean “one of the months as named in the calendar”). The ordinary usage of the word “year” does not resolve the question presented in this case.

As used in our statutory law, the term “year” is presumed to refer to a “calendar year,” OCGA § 1–3–3(24), unless the context in which it is used indicates otherwise. See Southerland v. Bradshaw, 255 Ga. 455, 456(2), 339 S.E.2d 579 (1986). No party to this case contends that “two consecutive years” means two consecutive calendar years—that is, two years beginning on January 1 of the first year—and indeed, the context of the statutory reference suggests strongly that it means something other than calendar years. After all, OCGA § 47–3–120(a)(2) speaks of “two consecutive years of membership service,” and because academic years in the public schools of Georgia traditionally have commenced in August or September, many new teachers would be expected to begin to accrue “membership service” in months other than January. Cf. Bd. of Ed. of Township of...