morning runners i'm a please the court in my name is george weston representing the plaintiffs in this case retirees employees of the chicago transit authority and the proposed classes of fourteen approximate fourteen thousand participants in the c t a retirement system let me ask you a question what is your position on the employees who are not or are not members of the transit unions yes your honor if you're addressing the standing issue for those employees those employees who are not represented by the transit unions it was impossible for the transit unions in the penn arbitration award the two thousand health benefits was changed and the new entrants after that point they did not have this retiree health benefit so both classes represent infidels who were hired before that date class one is individuals who retired before january first two thousand and seven before the retiree health benefit was purportedly eliminated by the interest arbitration award and class two involved individuals who are now retirees or still active but who are all complaint alleges claims independent of the c b a's if the health care benefits are provided for in government by the agreement feet under the terms of the pension code the retirement system is created the terms of the retirement system are created through collective fired me in the collective part freeman but the remedies that we're looking for here include remedies beyond simply breach of contract include remedies under the illinois constitution the retirement benefits clause for example and so just like for example if a collective bargaining agreement a term in a collective bargaining agreement discriminated against certain employees because of race it would be up to the employees would have a remedy and statutory discrimination laws for example or under the constitution for discrimination and it would be up to the court to interpret that collective bargaining agreement to determine what it says and if it determ term in the introductory paragraph of the collective bargaining agreement referring to the retirement disability allowance plan we do not dispute that the c t a is only responsibility for contributions for those disability retirement allowances are it's payments to the retirement plan fund the contributions from section seven which includes it's only responsibility for what the retirement plan is responsible for contributing for the retirement plan benefit under or charged the retiree's for that cost from two thousand and three forward and we submit that if the c t a retirement plan had no contractual obligation to pay millions of dollars per year for thousands of retirees through that period they would not have done so and that that creates an inference in our favor that the rich retirees have the contractual right to that benefit well what did they were what in their says this benefit terminates when the retire early attains age sixty five of retirees can retire before age sixty five many years before under the terms they claim and their benefit continues to age sixty five  how do you address the agrement that the retirement plan agreement contains that reservation of rights clause that the fetus the vesting of retiree health care benefits are granted first i would point out that none of those clauses is comparable to the clauses in the case law if these clauses merely reflect the fact that under this plan it's collective bargaining there where the parties negotiate to create the plan just like any collective bargaining agreement it might be nearly universal that every collective bargaining agreement has a provision that says before the terms of the contract the parties can renegotiate that but that does not mean that the parties can renegotiate a vested benefit and  those provisions that the court pointed to and that the defendants rely on is reservations and rights they're not tied directly to the retiree's health benefit and therefore if those provisions are reservations or rights that allow the parties to eliminate any benefit in the retirement plan any benefit in the collective bargaining agreement would apply equally well to the retirement i knew of these which is just an absurd result remember this is not going to risk the case we're not in federal court  not a private sector collective bargaining agreement private employees and therefore the pension a new really would not be protected by the arista and you know we contend in this litigation that both the pension annuity and the retired and the retiree health benefit are protected by what we have in illinois to replace the rest of the bill my retirement benefits wise and that that provides automatic testing at retirement as well and so we would also contend that the those provisions vested automatically when the employees join the system and they can no longer change that benefit after it's been installed in the system it's it's comparable if you just kind of you just kind of are your point by trying to define can't can't have an effect because they're vested that's just the other this is like a circular argument that the question is are these are the other rights vested in the face of a reservation ri yury answer is well the cases that were cited by the defendants are different types of reservation of rights clauses but my question is do you have any authority that supports your position that this type of preservation of by giving others notice sixty days prior to the contract and modify the agreement that provision similar to that we cite in our brief was considered by a six circuit opinion of the  the marconi opinion marconi juliet decided by the third district to be cleared of what the quote certainly did not consider those provisions as part of its holding but in the facts of that case it quoted a reopen a provision in a plan modification may be relevant to the issues here about whether they were tired of the retirement benefits plus covers retiree health benefits but this case is the single union employee yes they were union employees but the state health insurance benefit i provided very differently than the c t a retirement benefits c t a retiree benefits plus here the state for the benefit is provided by the state employee insurance and employee group insurance act if i have that correct which is in title five stat presumption is based in the private sector on the looking into the arista law where they find that under a risk pension benefits automatically vast where a receive welfare benefit do not automatically best there's no such distinction here in illinois and so the second circuit is not binding and i i think the marconi decision marcone if you juliet from the third district they consider these issues including all the arguments i think raised by the principle leave that retiree health benefits are a form of deferred compensation that workers earned by working for the system and in this case by making can trip contributions to the retirement plan out of every paycheck and to and from the participants that's the only place where those assets of the retirement fund come from and those assets then pay for the retirement benefit as well as the retirement the new it now in terms of the  retired employees don't you see that their position is different than the current employees those that are still working i think that's right there is case law offered for example if you don't look at it up the hockey face that shows there is something to be said about once and i'm a worker retires fairly the contract is completed as opposed to an active employ and there are special issues with  and this is why there is this helps the arians doesn't it in the sense that you really can't change that and fact now that they're no longer represented really by anyone could correct your honor and which is why there is the distinction between the class one of the class two employees but i would also submit that under the retirement benefits kweisi actually should be no distinction between the two because their long line of supreme court president says that the benefit once the system provides  benefit and notably the system doesn't have to provide any attempt to best just providing the benefit it best i'm going to close first day of work and cannot be later diminished just like the general assembly could not later  mend the pension code to decrease diminish a benefit the parties here who are granted their power by the general assembly can't negotiate to negotiate to diminish that benefit even for the active employees know i would like to turn back and focus on the facts here that this case was dismissed on the pleadings in the face of allegations that for more than twenty five years the parties provided this retiree either way now i know because the one in the us language of section twenty point while there and which language are you referring to i'm referring to the language that says effective december first person coverage for terri and so with the other provision that says that they will not terminate terminate it until sixty five you read that in combination with that so that the that the benefits that don't tell young individuals turn sixty five because they don't have them anyway after that age but yes my question to you is why aren't there questions of fact if you take those two together and your position would be well there are questions of fact because it's an ambiguous that there was a cap of the amount paid and the premiums the amount paid on the premiums just kept at the amount paid on some or thirty first two thousand and three and it's just out there i found that was the most that the retirees could expect so therefore what about the retirees who when did they greet to any voted on these things and this is a collective bargaining agreement that's one of the big differences i think your honour's pointed out between this and so did every one of these retirees basically leave the c t a and become retired before any of these collective bargaining agreements were changed i don't know the specifics of the class but i don't think it makes a difference behind the collective bargaining agreements that that's the white your collective bargaining agreements that you give up your those people that are currently employed i don't know that these individuals that have already been there are retired are really being represented well just i don't think autistic that marconi says that there's sort of a conflict in this whole idea  between those that are retired and those that are currently working well let's take this back if you go back to when these agreements were like  was we're going to pay the premium but we're going to cap that's the agreement that they have this agreement they have to live with and council wants to read in this fully paid health insurance premium free health insurance past the summer thirty first two thousand and three and that language you can reconcile marconi let's assume that we agree with the marconi decision on how do you reconcile that with your position today i reconcile because marconi says that it's for life they use vesting facts section eleven specifically lays out that steamrolls section eight specifically says what like it's our position to read this as a whole it's different than even hockey and that really difference is your honor is here that this benefit terminates when i retire and painted sixty five we look at this as an agreement that only goes through the end of the collective bargaining agreement and the december thirty first two thousand and three day doesn't work because the collective bargaining agreement for two thousand and four kicked in on january first two thousand or so if you consider  his agreement in context that the c p a would end and the agreement in the the parties benefits there under other pension with hands then you look at this as they have this right to health care subject to this ca as that's what you say that is what i'm saying right and that's that's the presumption that it's in the seventh circuit by the cases that were cited by the hacky and also by just about the right and there's a difference here between you know health care and pension and the reason and there's a difference why courts treat them differently and this was discussed in the mag case it's currently on appeal from the illinois supreme court and poor case which was the distinguished pension benefits you can look at those an actuarial basis and figure goes out here's the employ here's what we're going to pay them based on the plan it's going to look like this health care benefits are much harder to plan for and that there's all these variables that go into there that make it very hard to plan that's why traditionally health care benefits expire the term of the c p a and that's part of a reason why you have this presumption that they terminate with the point well doesn't  benefits terminate also the c p a tell me no no they do not and that reason is if you look at the language of the pension plan the c t a and the unions specifically use the word for question so when a person comes to work for the c t a you know and their advice to what their benefits would be they told that those health care benefits could be taken away comes for retirement so you know are they told that you know we may take away these health care benefits any time that we want to i mean i think toll that or do they rely on what the benefits are as part of their program so when they become senior citizens they know how much they're going to be able to live out their judge their spouse that doesn't mean there are people like everybody else like you yes  guy these are people we're dealing with who rely on things so i mean what are they told judge what the fourteen thousand retirees reached hold i can't tell y thing to rely on is the four corners of the plan in the collective bargaining agreements so if the retiree relied on something else outside of those documents it's not reasonable and you have to remember these are the parties to the plan it's the unions and insert sophisticated parties with counsel and i think times getting out will get out the scope of the complaint here but they issue written things describing what the benefits are because there's a contract equable stop with the supply respect to changing the terms of the collective bargaining agreement and the plan or all statements by undetermined people so i think that's the whole point of the collective bargaining process is that you have this one agreement that covers all working class styles with tyrants and if you start looking at maybe one person was told by somebody that they had this th languages and he gives here trying to be as it says that you cannot aid will be kept and the agreements clearly state that they can only be amended by writing collective bargaining between the parties if the c t a and the union are very sophisticated parties intended to extend the cap the i don't know forever fully paid free premium free like these other cases they would right no plans have not cited a single case where rights were took that work were not vested rights return that's it based on course the performance or some sort of work really it's always done right that's because  we could set up for you could tell us about that new place the courts to put a gun for the public transit authority if the question is whether nonunion employees participate in the pension and health care benefits plan yes they do and they participate on the same basis as the union so participate in it by giving having contributions taken out of their paycheck to contribute to the plan it's a contract that they are agreeing to participate separate and apart from the collective bargaining agreement itself again it's a question of besting which my colleague here addressed is separate and apart from the two ancillary issues that i'd like to address at this time which is whether the speech is a proper party in this case and whether current employees as opposed to retired employees have standing to assert the claims in this case with respect to the proper party even if the plaintiff the stablished that the health care benefit is a vested right so even if a status that the c t a is not a proper party to this case the c t a has not had any responsibility to pay any overtrick case which was an unpublished twenty three order was offered blowing and caused a bit of a back and forth out west to show that the c t a in fact was not paying for these benefits it was billing the health care plan the retirement plan and being reimbursed the c t a was administering clarity of record it is i mean in the sense that we when when they raise this argument we responded to it with our own argument i mean it really is just a question of they made the argument we respond to the argument and it's not just through the old tree data decision show that we're not going to be looking at that we showed bad there's nothing in there and the agreements on the face of the agreement that requires a c t a and just and to throw out an unsupported allegation again i factually unsupported allegation that the city has been paying for this there's no way percent of their current salary into the plan the c t a as part of the pension reform legislation that is part of the public and to be discussed fund of a five hundred million dollar bond and currently pays interest on the bond but that is their only operation j pensions annual reports are on their website my understanding is they're not a funding issue that the funding crisis was resolved by this one time contribution and that they are going forward solely based on the contributions of the been a tremendous amount of reliance that it was going to be all shouting were sucked to agreement here our help as opposed to the monetary amount that someone received precisely precisely we've never taken a position that the monetary pension and knew  specific types of cases where individuals are asserting individual rights under statutes but this case does not resemble those cases because this is a individual asserting a right that only exists in the context of a collective bargaining agreement they representing us yes your honor i think this returns back to where we began and back again the argument that the collective bargaining agreement that they'd created this right under the terms of the pension code but the remedy that the current employer in the pension code does that under the pension code article twenty two establishes that their retirement system will be created via collective bargaining and then the fact that the benefit but the retirees receive is access to the self funded health plan that the c t a provides to its active employees which we think yes to also the point of when we say the c t a continue to provide this benefit through two thousand and nine well after december thirty first two thousand and three that's what they were continuing to do and he did that under a collective bargaining agreement  agreement when it ends and you want to stick it are there changes that occur all the time yes your honor but aren't those individual employees subject to those changes after the union representing them ar individually to their members of the transit unions i think the difference is that the they're allowed to do the modification but not to it that's the benefit i think it's equivalent as we describe it again goes back to the whole question of whether  example as they did to eliminate the benefit entirely for individuals who are not participants in the system before the change was made but just like the general assembly always has a right to amend and modify the pension code retirement benefits clause states you can't do that and then apply that change if it's a diminishment to a current participant in the in the private sector all the time prettifying payments negotiate pension benefits and then in that context it's a risk that says you can't going beyond it and then if you look at that and think about the ambiguity and think about the fact that it's under macarthur marcone it should be their burden to show it's on it big us look at the party's course of dealing if they had no contractual obligation to that one allegation regarding the c t a well i think it is a specific fact that alleged that they continue to provide this benefit through two thousand and nine now do we does that those the second clause of the first sen case then the retirement plan rolls of course pending much more than that december thirty first beyond to number thirty first two thousand and three remember what's also being provided is it's not just a payment for cost here the retirement benefits clause is a legal remedy that the state of in illinois provides to employees independent of the remedy for preach of contract that is covered by bill my public labor relations act for the uniform ar that they have stamping but but the fact of the matter is is that they're absolutely both in the collective bargaining agreement that lasts for only a certain period of time and then there renegotiate record so take for example with a collective bargaining agreement the union and employer negotiated that a certain group of employees would now have will now make ten dollars an hour and all the sudden in the next contract they negotiated that the union employee that certain group of employees that all happen to be african american would be paid eight dollars an hour now be those of african american players could certainly go to the state courts and say all right that i had in my collective bargaining agreement was taken you know it is in all honesty if i back position of course but we think that those claims the allegations in addition to going towards a promissory estoppel claim we think it should also be considered when the court considers t a and the retirement plan continue to represent to them and then to be able to say under this reservations of rights cause that's not anywhere near the retirement benefit doesn't apply it doesn't specifically reference this retiree health benefit and we're telling you you're going to have this you know until age sixty five you can make your decision to cure to help if we retire and have a fixed income but then to come around and say we can change that effectively take your entire nudie away by increasing the cost of the retiree health benefit which