Opinion ID: 2065544
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Consent Decree Litigation

Text: The instant complaint, however, was not the beginning of the long and tangled journey through the court system that the COLA benefit controversy has taken to date, reminiscent at times of the chancery case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, described by Charles Dickens in the novel Bleak House, as it too drones on. [5] On April 5, 1990, the city sought a declaratory judgment to determine the validity of the retirement board's previous approval of various COLAs for Class A and Class B city employees. City of Providence v. The Employee Retirement Board of Providence, 749 A.2d 1088, 1090 (R.I.2000) ( Mansolillo II ); Mansolillo v. The Employee Retirement Board of Providence, 668 A.2d 313, 314 (R.I.1995) ( Mansolillo I ). After a Superior Court justice ordered the parties to prepare and submit a written judgment denying the city's claims, counsel for both parties requested time to negotiate a final settlement of the case that would terminate the city pension controversy without further appeals. Mansolillo II, 749 A.2d at 1090; Mansolillo I, 668 A.2d at 314. The parties negotiated a consent judgment, which the retirement board adopted and the trial justice entered on December 18, 1991, awarding a 6 percent compounded COLA to the settlement's beneficiaries. Picard v. City of Providence, 1999 WL 814274, No. 98-40L, slip op. at 2 (D.N.H.1999); Mansolillo II, 749 A.2d at 1091. The city complied fully with the consent decree for roughly two years, in apparent reliance on this Court's holding in Bruckshaw v. Paolino, 557 A.2d 1221 (R.I.1989) (concerning the retirement board's authority pursuant to the Home Rule Charter), until 1993, when the council acknowledged our holding in Betz, 605 A.2d at 839 (holding that the charter served to vest in the council the exclusive authority to legislate city employee benefits while delegating to the retirement board only the authority to regulate those benefits), and sought a declaration that the consent decree was invalid. Mansolillo II, 749 A.2d at 1091-92. By agreement of the parties, seven questions were certified to this Court and, in Mansolillo I, 668 A.2d at 316-17, we concluded that the consent judgment was valid, final, and binding upon the city as to the parties involved in the litigation, but declined to respond to the remaining six questions. The case returned to this Court in Mansolillo II, 749 A.2d at 1095, 1100, after the trial justice found that the six certified questions left unanswered by this Court were moot and that the consent decree applied only to those city employees, including a number of firefighters, who had retired on or before the date of entry of the consent decree, December 18, 1991. In addition to challenging the trial justice's findings, defendants also challenged the validity of City of Providence Ordinance, chs.1994-1 and 1994-2 (Ordinances 1994-1 and 1994-2), which attempted to vacate and nullify the consent judgment and establish a new benefits scheme for retirees. Mansolillo II, 749 at 1100. Neither ordinance included the 6 percent compounded COLA. Ordinance, ch.1994-1, § 1; Ordinance, ch.1994-2, § 2. This Court held that: (1) the consent decree was valid and binding on the city, but covered only those employees who had retired on or before December 18, 1991; and (2) that Ordinances 1994-1 and 1994-2 were valid council enactments, but that they could not be applied to impair any pension benefit rights previously granted to those city employees who had retired effective on or before December 18, 1991. Mansolillo II, 749 A.2d at 1100. Because plaintiffs retired after this date, the consent decree litigation did not resolve the instant COLA controversy. C