review of the board's decision to deny the point of her request to participate in the health care plan for retirees being administered by the fund for the reason that she did not meet and  requirements under the terms of the health care plan then in effect they have her last employer be called kaun there is no dispute that the plaintiff's last employer was not cook county it was the state of illinois court then in a split decision reversed the circuit court and of reversed the circuit court's decision in this appeal i'm asking you this morning to reverse the appellate court and  the pension code that is directly contrary to the intent of the legislature to only authorized the payment of a subsidy for health care premiums and that was only on a volunteer basis decision in underwater vs city of chicago thirdly the wholesale limitation posed by the appellate court on the rule making authority of the board is way too restrict facts in this case are pretty straightforward and are virtually undisputed and so you will examine those facts under two sections of the pension called political mine and i'd like to just dress for a minute if i may what standard of review you should apply since we have a disagreement we have a service there you are presented with a mix question of one fact that should be reviewed enough the appellate court relied on your decision in a i found messenger to apply that standard in the u however as you are well aware in that decision you went into a lengthy analysis of when a case presents a mixed question that should ultimately be reviewed under the clearly erroneous and in fact you decide in a town that was clearly wrong because you were presented question of long fair the reason i think this is important is because as you know under a clearly erroneous standard there is some deference that should be given to the administrative by based upon their and then one year later they amended it to say that instead of a mandatory requirement that that fifty percent of the premiums be paid by the farm again any amount you look up to one hundred percent so they gave the fund they are discretion to decide whether or not they want to pay any subsidy it wasn't until february of ninety two dollars that the county terms of the blue cross blue shield plan that the final answer into in april of ninety two when he took over the administration the phone by the clear language and it came to the members and so now i'd like to move to what does that mean with respect to the visions in this case there are only two provisions that you're looking at section nine to thirty nine dollars which sets out all your finest contention that she has an unconditional right to participate in the group health care plan misconstrues the language of the section st and foremost article nine provides almost exclusively annuities and related disability and survivor benefits for fun participants there is not one other section in it that deals with health care because the only section is nine through thirty nine and that section as you know from looking at it does not provide a specific grant that a new tense limitation in other words you have to be an annuity to to participate in the subsidy if it's granted and then makes sense because there are other participants in the farm barehanded is there they're active workers from the annuity section didio as with the handling of contributions by of the health care premiums so when you read all of these sections together as you should it's very clear that the intention i be here for each of the funds annuitants who chooses to participate in any of the county's health care plans and then so for now it's critical that clause is set off by again was simply to allow for this payment of the subsidy and could they do it based upon the fact that you were a participant absolutely it perfect sense it makes sense because obviously you could have people who are participating in a nine county home of private and perhaps it's a campaign so it's very expensive the legislature care and those sections which one example was the state employees group insurance and it states that the purpose is to provide a program a group of life i'm sure a program of benefits and health care benefits easy and other benefits for the persons in the service of the state and then it goes on to detail all of those coverages different types of coverages and benefits so that's one administer it to all annuities so specifically and then it goes on to detail again all of the different types of averages basic past major medical supplementary very clear and specific that it's intending to help the fund create a health care plan and that simply did not happen here it did not happen here there is no description similar to that the pla this court is well aware of all the litigation involving the pension protection clause what's clear from the underworld as well as other cases you've had before you is there the pension protection clause does not freed benefits it protects benefits that are in place by contract which is not the case here there's no contract and issue here between the plaintiff in the front row by station and the only see it you hear is nine to thirty nine has to have the ability to administer a plan it has to have the right to set forth certain qualifications for participants in in the plan or not spelled out in the statute so two t so the fun's all implement their own procedures if you follow the adult course decision that a phone couldn't have up a procedure or a regulation that says if you don't do this all your medical records if you don't appear before has chosen to stay here and be half of annuitants a certain percentage of their premium it's not a free plan and it's about sixty percent right now the statute says the fund may pay and required the fund to pay fifty percent and so the amendment has the appellate court pointed out gave the un trustees the ability to choose to gauge if you will the percentage of the premium that participating rather than creating a right to purchase of the statute creates a right in each annuity who chooses to participate in the right to participate if the fund chooses not to provide chooses not to subsidize that's the funds decision but once the fund has chosen one's trustees the fund have chosen to subsidize a portion of the premium f good for all the new weapons who choose to participate in the plan the last employer exclusion began the unfairness that it represents for a best of the new it and to say if you become a wal mart greeter or crossing guard you lose your health care is absurd but on a cascading basis if you start out the last employer restriction conflicts with the statute to thirty nine and it would be invalid as applied because if the if a person has by statute the right to participate the board of limiting that right from what the person has a right to participate in the pension is an invalid rule she's a participant from under bluebell from whenever she becomes a participant she has the right under the statute to participate in a plan that if the  provides one and subsidize it she has right to participate so when she was employed by cook county when she was employed by cook county she was a participant they could not have adopted that during that time and have it be effective against  even if they did even if it was the fact of then it still would have been effective against somebody who were tired before it was adopted that's mandy's i mean this is a restriction that as you get down the cascade they never that's correct the other thing about this is the board here were delayed nine months in dealing with with her we had filed a complaint the board then asked to have it reminded to the board to for them to review it they then just sort of spun things around for nine months before they ever got around to it we were there they went in a closed session they didn't tell us when they came back into open all a new instance of the county choose to participate in this retiring health care plan of a right to participate that's what we asserted when we filed the case in beginning that's true now  it is also it's bad policy from the board's position as well because if you leave the st employer the last employer restriction in the way that the board asserts that if you were retiring early you would want to keep hey into this this plan keep your coverage alive but god forbid you go to work as a you don't want to work anywhere else you don't want to go to work as a wal mart greeter pricing or if you lose your coverage so you got to keep paying for the coverage and that means the board has to be paying for coverage as well that cost the board money that needn't be done so the last employer restriction while i unsupportable in concept and certainly not in this day and age from people retire and they still work because the economy is such that many people do still shouldn't be disqualified from your best percentage is because maybe the board will be in a position to pay greater percentage maybe less right now they pay sixty percent what he did was it gave the board the flexibility to determine how much we're going to subsidize the the board chooses to provide a plan and tubes to support to subsidize it as a percentage of the premium that the people are obligated to do that across the board and what existed at that time was not with respect to thirty nine didn't exist and the fun wasn't in ministry or nor pain in the subsidies so really when she entered the system there were no rights with respect to participate in a health care plan just a sports question is also salient because again i think the requirement under the  state insurance act that she was subject to is that she had eight years of service and she retired before so she was ineligible but there again is a great example of a reasonable as the state has a reasonable rule and regulation in place for whatever reason fiscal reason and that they need to adopt in force and that's what they did just like we do here when you get down to example of where this doesn't even exist in the private sector so the think that the legislature put it in for the public sector work public funds are involved just doesn't you know make sense  decision in order for the court had jurisdiction there has to be a final decision that's adopted by the board and they are unfortunately have been done here it was letters sent to miss levin i tell her th they were going to allow or to do this so we had to back it up get it before the board make sure they understood everything that was at issue and then make a decision that was reviewing and that you know takes a little bit of time so it really is a very similar situation and it underwood of course the court was clear the pension protection clause does not create benefits it only protects the ones that are granted by contract stay at you and under court were to uphold the decision then yes it became a class action and all these people we have twenty thousand active members we have seventeen thousand retirees and now all the sudden everybody is going to come knocking on the door one to another employer it wants to be in this plan and you have said you can do this what is the fiscal that's what's going well i submit to you is going to be substantial