Williams v. Houston Firemen's Relief

• Decision Date: 12 September 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-99-01361-CV.,01-99-01361-CV.
• Citation: 121 S.W.3d 415
• Parties: Elmer F. WILLIAMS II, Appellant, v. HOUSTON FIREMEN'S RELIEF AND RETIREMENT FUND,<SMALL><SUP>1</SUP></SMALL> Donny R. Meyers, George E. Loudermilk, Maxie R. Patterson, D. Grady Perdue, and The City of Houston, Appellees.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

121 S.W.3d 415

Elmer F. WILLIAMS II, Appellant, v. HOUSTON FIREMEN'S RELIEF AND RETIREMENT FUND,¹ Donny R. Meyers, George E. Loudermilk, Maxie R. Patterson, D. Grady Perdue, and The City of Houston, Appellees.

No. 01-99-01361-CV.

Court of Appeals of Texas, Houston (1st Dist.).

September 12, 2003.

Rehearing Overruled October 17, 2003.

Frederick Thomas Dietrich, Frederick T. Dietrick, PLLC, Houston, TX, for Appellant.

William A. Worthington, Clifford Bowie Husted, Strasburger & Price, L.L.P., Carole

Snyder, Asst. City Atty., Houston, TX, for Appellees.

Panel on rehearing consists of Justices HEDGES, TAFT and EVELYN V. KEYES.

OPINION ON REHEARING

EVELYN V. KEYES, Justice.

Appellant, firefighter Elmer F. Williams II, appeals a take-nothing judgment rendered after the trial court denied Williams's motions for partial summary judgment and granted (1) the summary judgment motions of the Houston Firemen's Relief and Retirement Fund (the Fund) and the individual appellees, who were the Fund's board members (collectively, "the trustees"), and (2) the summary judgment motions and dismissal motion of appellee the City of Houston ("the City"). We issued our original opinion in this appeal on December 27, 2001. Appellant moved for rehearing, as did the Fund and the trustees. We grant Williams's motion for rehearing. We deny the Fund's and trustees' motion as moot. The Court's prior opinion and judgment of December 27, 2001 are vacated, set aside, and annulled, and this opinion and judgment are issued in their stead. We modify the judgment and affirm as so modified.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Williams joined the Houston Fire Department ("HFD") and the Fund in 1990, after six years and five months of service with two other cities' fire departments, neither of which had statutory firefighters' retirement funds like Houston's. In 1995, Williams sought to purchase prior service credit ("PSC") under the firemen's retirement-fund statute ("the retirement statute") for these six years and five months of service, to be applied toward his retirement with HFD. The PSC provision of the former retirement statute, section 30, provided:

A firefighter who transfers from the fire department of one city to that of a city covered by this Act and desires to participate in the fund of that city shall: ... [meet three requirements, including paying "into the fund of that city an amount equal to the total contribution he would have made had he been employed by that city instead of the city from which he transferred."].²

The statute was silent as to whether the city from which the firefighter transferred had to have a fund. While Williams's request was pending, the Fund adopted guidelines construing section 30: years worked outside Houston could be credited towards retirement only if the former city had a similar statutory firefighter's fund. (The parties refer to this interpretation by the Fund and the trustees as "the guidelines," and so do we.) Applying the guidelines, the Fund denied Williams's PSC request in January 1997. The reason for that denial was that the cities in which Williams had worked before did not have firefighters' retirement funds similar to Houston's.

Subsequently, the Legislature repealed article 6243e.2 and replaced it with article 6243e.2(1). Article 6243e.2(1), the current retirement statute, restated and amended former article 6243e.2, the former retirement statute, and continued in effect each firefighter's relief and retirement fund established under that article.³ The PSC provision of the current retirement statute, section 16(a), provides:

"A person who becomes a firefighter in a municipality to which this article applies may receive service credit for prior employment with the fully paid fire department of another municipality in this state with a similar fund benefitting only firefighters of that municipality to which the firefighter contributed if ... [the firefighter meets five requirements]."⁴

The Fund and the trustees interpreted the first sentence of former section 30(a) to mean what the italicized portion of current section 16(a) now expressly says.

Williams I

That same year, Williams sued the Fund in district court, alleging statutory and constitutional claims and challenges to the Fund's guidelines and its PSC determination. On the Fund's motion,⁵ the trial court dismissed all of Williams's claims against the Fund, without prejudice, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction—except (1) his constitutional claims and (2) his challenge that the Fund's ruling was barred by res judicata, claim preclusion, issue preclusion, waiver, estoppel, and collateral estoppel. Williams appealed the dismissal order. On interlocutory appeal, we affirmed, holding that the trial court had neither "appellate"⁶ nor original jurisdiction to consider the dismissed claims until 2003, the earliest possible date Williams might be "eligible for retirement." Williams v. Houston Firemen's Relief & Ret. Fund, No. 01-98-00681-CV, slip op. at 5-14, 1999 WL 82441 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] Feb. 11, 1999, no pet.) (op. on reh'g) (not designated for publication) (hereinafter "Williams I").

Williams II

Williams subsequently added the City and the four trustees, in their individual and official capacities, as defendants. He also added common law claims against all defendants. The Fund filed supplemental motions for traditional rule 166a(c) summary judgment; the trustees moved for 166a(c) summary judgment and incorporated the summary judgment grounds alleged by the Fund; the City moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction or, alternatively, for rule 166a(c) summary judgment; and Williams moved for rule 166a(c) partial summary judgment.⁷

By the time all summary judgment and dismissal motions were considered, Williams was asserting the following claims and challenges:

Challenges to the Merits of the Guidelines and The Fund's and the Trustees' PSC Determination

1. The Fund and the trustees misconstrued section 30 of the former retirement statute;

2. No or insufficient evidence supported the Fund and the trustees' PSC determination;

3. The Fund and the trustees' PSC determination was not supported by substantial evidence; and

4. The Fund's PSC determination was barred by res judicata, claim preclusion, issue preclusion, waiver, estoppel, and collateral estoppel.

Constitutional Claims

1. The Fund's guidelines and the trustees' application of them exceeded their statutory authority;

2. The former retirement statute unconstitutionally delegated governmental authority to the Fund;

3. The Fund's guidelines and the trustees' PSC determination were an unlawful and unconstitutional retroactive application of the law that adversely affected Williams's vested property right to PSC;

4. The Fund's guidelines and the trustees' application of them were an unconstitutional local or special law;

5. As applied, the guidelines denied Williams equal protection under the state constitution; and

6. The Fund's and the trustees' PSC determination violated substantive due process.

Common Law Claims⁸

1. The trustees and the City fraudulently concealed from Williams or misled him about his right to purchase PSC, which acts were also breaches of their fiduciary and good-faith-and-fair-dealing duties;

2. All defendants conspired to construe the PSC statute against Williams, to withhold material information from and mislead him (presumably about the right to purchase PSC), to breach their fiduciary and good-faith-and-fair-dealing duties to him, to conceal those breaches from him, and "to refuse to act in his best interests"; and

3. The above acts of "conspiracy" also constituted fraudulent misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment, and breaches of the defendants' fiduciary and good-faith-and-fair-dealing duties.

Williams sought compensatory and punitive damages, declaratory relief, pre- and post-judgment interest, attorney's fees, and costs.

The trial court granted the Fund's and the trustees' summary judgment motions; granted the City's motion to dismiss or, alternatively, for summary judgment; denied Williams's motions for partial summary judgment; and rendered a takenothing judgment against Williams. Williams appealed, asserting that the district court had subject matter jurisdiction over all his statutory, constitutional and common law claims under the retirement statute, the Texas Trust Code,⁹ and its inherent constitutional powers; that the trustees and the City were not immune from his common law claims; that the Fund and the trustees were barred from changing their interpretation of the guidelines by res judicata, stare decisis, and collateral estoppel; and that he was entitled to judgment on the merits of his statutory, constitutional, and common law claims.

In our previous opinion in this appeal, we declined to revisit our holding in Williams I that the former retirement statute did not provide for review of the issues raised by Williams's suit. Williams v. Houston Firemen's Relief and Ret. Fund, No. 01-99-01361-CV, 2001 WL 1671349 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] Dec. 27, 2001, no writ) (not designated for publication) (hereinafter "Williams II"). We again held that the retirement statute's express language permits judicial review of a member's challenges to the Fund's action only when the member is eligible for retirement or disabled. See id., slip op. at 5-8. Since Williams was not then eligible for retirement, we held that his statutory claims were not ripe, despite his having exhausted his administrative remedies. Since ripeness is a prerequisite for justiciability, we further held that none of Williams's other claims—which derived from his statutory claims—were ripe. We therefore granted the Fund's jurisdictional plea, reformed the trial court's judgment to correspond to our ruling, and, as modified, affirmed. See Williams II, slip op. at 5-8, 12-14. Williams's and the Fund's and trustees' motions for...