Town of Manchester v. Manchester Police Union, Local 1495, Council 15, AFSCME, 2449

• Decision Date: 04 December 1984
• Docket Number: No. 2449,2449
• Citation: 3 Conn.App. 1,484 A.2d 455
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: TOWN OF MANCHESTER v. MANCHESTER POLICE UNION, LOCAL 1495, COUNCIL 15, AFSCME, Et Al.

Page 455

484 A.2d 455

3 Conn.App. 1

TOWN OF MANCHESTER v. MANCHESTER POLICE UNION, LOCAL 1495, COUNCIL 15, AFSCME, Et Al.

No. 2449.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued Oct. 10, 1984.

Decided Dec. 4, 1984.

Edward T. Lynch, Jr., New Britain, for appellants (named defendant and intervening defendant).

Barry W. Botticello, Manchester, for appellees (plaintiff and third party defendants).

BORDEN, Judge.

This appeal ¹ involves the issue of whether, under the town of Manchester code, a police officer is entitled to take early retirement at age forty-four with seventeen years of service. The trial court held in effect that he is not so entitled. We also hold that he is not so entitled, but for reasons other than those used by the trial court.

In 1980, Raymond Mazzone, who was age forty-four and had served as a Manchester police officer for seventeen years, filed a request with the town pension board for early retirement and immediate payment of pension benefits based on § 13-41(b) of the town code and article XV.C.1. of the town personnel rules. He had been employed as a police officer since January 6, 1963. He claimed that his normal retirement date, for purposes of calculating early retirement, was January 6, 1988, twenty-five years from his initial employment, and that the early retirement provisions of the code applicable to him permitted him to take early retirement after at least ten years of service and within ten years of his normal retirement date. The board denied his request, claiming that his normal retirement date for purposes of calculating early retirement was age sixty, and that the code contained no provision for a police officer to receive pension benefits prior to age fifty with twenty-five years of service.

Manchester Police Union, Local 1495, Council 15, AFSCME, which is the collective bargaining agent for all interested police officers under a collective bargaining agreement with the town, sought to arbitrate the dispute. The town as plaintiff brought this action against the union to enjoin the arbitration. Mazzone intervened as a party defendant. The union abandoned its efforts to have the issue arbitrated, summoned the board and the town treasurer as third party defendants, ² and asserted a counterclaim against the plaintiff and a cross complaint against the third party defendants. The counterclaim and cross complaint, which mirror each other, sought a declaratory judgment ³ that age fifty is the normal retirement date for police officers, that police officers are eligible for early retirement ten years before that date in accordance with § 13-41(b) of the code, and that benefit calculations be based on age fifty as the normal retirement date.

The trial court agreed with the plaintiff that the normal retirement date ⁴ of a police officer is age sixty and that a police officer was eligible for early retirement benefits at age fifty with twenty-five years of service, and rendered a declaratory judgment accordingly. The defendants appeal. We disagree with both the plaintiff and the defendants. We conclude that a police officer's normal retirement date is the first day of the month following his fiftieth birthday, and that he is eligible for what may be called early retirement benefits on that date, with less than twenty-five years of service, pursuant to § 13-41(e)(2) of the Manchester code.

Chapter 13 of the code governs pensions and retirement of town employees. Article III of chapter 13, entitled "Supplemental Pension Plan," contains the critical sections of the town's pension plan applicable to this case. They are § 13-41(a), entitled "Normal retirement"; ⁵ § 13-41(b), entitled "Early retirement"; ⁶ and §§ 13-41(e)(1) and 13-41(e)(2), entitled "Retirement for policemen." ⁷

The defendants argue that a police officer's normal retirement date is age fifty with twenty-five years of service, and that, by virtue of subsection (b) of § 13-41 of the code, he is entitled to take early retirement after ten years of service and within ten years of his normal retirement date. Indeed, their entire position in this case is premised on the applicability of § 13-41(b) to police officers; Mazzone specifically made his request for early retirement pursuant to that subsection. The defendants point to evidence of the intent of their negotiators involved in collective bargaining with the town in 1974. That bargaining, which dealt with pensions for police officers, resulted in agreements which were subsequently approved by the town and reflected in amendments to the code. Suffice it to say that we have examined that evidence and find it unpersuasive. ⁸ We conclude, instead, that § 13-41(b) does not apply to police officers.

The principles of construction of state statutes apply equally to local ordinances. Duplin v. Shiels, Inc., 165 Conn. 396, 399, 334 A.2d 896 (1973). One of the most basic of those principles is that "[w]here the meaning of [an ordinance] is clear and the language unambiguous, the enactment speaks for itself and leaves no room for construction by the court." Breen v. Department of Liquor Control, 2 Conn.App. 628, 631, 481 A.2d 755 (1984). The last sentence of subsection (b) of § 13-41, in clear and unambiguous language, the meaning of which is not open to question, provides that "this subsection shall not apply to members eligible for benefits provided by paragraph (e)(1) of this section." See footnote 6, supra. Paragraph (e)(1) "of this section" is the part of § 13-41 which provides for retirement by police officers. See footnote 7, supra.

It is quite clear, therefore, that, for purposes of the issues raised in this case, retirement of police officers is governed, not by §§ 13-41(a) and 13-41(b), which apply to other town employees, but by §§ 13-41(e)(1) and (2), and, more specifically, that the early retirement provisions of § 13-41(b) do not apply to police officers. Section 13-41(e) carves out of the general pension provisins of the code special rules which apply only to police officers. This reading is buttressed by the following introductory language of § 13-41(e)(1): "Any provisions of this article to the contrary notwithstanding ...."

Under § 13-41(a), a town employee who is not a police officer has a normal retirement date of the first day of the month following his sixty-fifth birthday. See footnote 5, supra. Under § 13-43(b), if he has thirty years of service he receives an annual pension of fifty percent of his final annual average wage or salary; if he has less than thirty years of service, his annual pension is reduced proportionately. Under § 13-41(b), he may take early retirement at age fifty-five with ten years of service, at a reduced pension. See footnote 6, supra. Under § 13-41(c), he may take "deferred retirement" and continue to work beyond age sixty-five, with the approval of the town's general manager, given on a year to year basis.

Under § 13-41(e)(1); see footnote 7, supra; a police officer may retire at age fifty with twenty-five years of service; he may continue to work after age fifty-five with the approval of the town's general manager, given on a year to year basis; and he must retire at age sixty. If he has twenty-five years of service his annual pension is fifty percent of his final average annual wage or salary; if he has more than twenty-five years of service, his pension is increased by two percent of that wage or salary, for each year of service beyond twenty-five to a maximum of sixty-six and two-thirds percent of his final average annual wage or salary.

This analysis leaves for consideration subsection (2) of § 13-41(e), which provides for a proportionately reduced "monthly pension payable to a policeman or police officer who retires on his normal retirement date with less than twenty-five (25) years of service ...." (Emphasis added.) See footnote 7, supra. Although, unlike § 13-41(b) applicable to other town employees, this paragraph does not use the term "early retirement," it is this paragraph and its use of the term "normal retirement date" which governs the request for a declaratory judgment in this case.

The trial court concluded, and the plaintiff urges us to conclude, that "normal retirement date" here means age sixty, and that any retirement prior to that point in time is early retirement. We disagree. We hold that a police officer's "normal retirement date" under § 13-41(e)(2) means the first day of the month following his fiftieth birthday, and that, under that paragraph, he may retire on that date without regard to his years of service and receive a proportionately reduced pension calculated in accordance with that paragraph.

First, we note that unlike §§ 13-41(a) and (b), which apply to other town employees but not to police officers, § 13-41(e)(2) does not define the term "normal retirement date." We also note that, where the term is defined albeit not with respect to police officers, the definition is cast in terms of the employee's age, by reference to the first day of the month following a particular birthday and without reference to his years of service. See footnote 5, supra. Thus, it is reasonable to read the term "normal retirement date" as synonymous with the term "normal retirement age." This reading is consistent with the language of § 13-41(e)(2), which couples the use of the phrase "his normal retirement date" with a subsequent reference to the length of years of service. It is apparent, therefore, that "normal retirement date" in § 13-41(e)(2) is used to locate an age of the police officer without reference to his years of service.

Second, where a statute uses a technical term associated with a particular trade or business, that term "should be accorded the meaning which [it] would convey to an informed person in the ... trade or business." Hardware Mutual Casualty Co. v. Premo, 153 Conn. 465, 475, 217 A.2d 698 (1966); General Statutes § 1-1. We have not been pointed to any particular meaning...