Opinion ID: 1156349
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Other governmental service

Text: The further massacre of § 51-9-6 deals with the provision allowing judges credit in the retirement system for service as prosecuting attorney in any county. The provision reads as follows: Provided further, that if a judge of a court of record has served for a period of not less than ten full years and has made payments into the judges retirement fund as provided in this article for each month during which he served as judge, following the effective date of this section, any portion of time which he had served as prosecuting attorney in any county in this State shall qualify as years of service. The majority in Dostert held that this provision violated the constitutional prohibition against special legislation and held that language unconstitutional, and therefore deleted the emphasized phrase, totally changing the statute's meaning. Now Pandora's box is fully opened, but in order to benefit from the goodies inside, it was necessary to go further, because striking the language as prosecuting attorney in any county gave judges credit for prior service only if they had served  in this State, a meaningless phrase. The purpose of the holding was to change the wording of section 6 so that it would allow a judge who had ten full years of credited service (judicial and military) to also credit any portion of time which he had served in government in this State as qualifying years of service in order to qualify for benefits under the Judicial Retirement System. To allow credit for all government service, the majority invented a broad new definition for the word  in.  In footnote 32 of the majority opinion in is defined as follows: In connotes service to the State of West Virginia or any of its political subdivisions. The Administrative Director should view the word in to mean political subdivision as defined in the public employees retirement system statute. (emphasis added). I wish the majority had included the cite to the dictionary from which they obtained this incredible definition of the word in. The preposition in not only opened up credit for all prior service to this State or any of its political subdivisions, but note 33 interprets severability statutes, case law and the presumed intent of the legislature to include retroactive governmental service in this State for full or part-time service, whether by employment, election or appointment by the State of West Virginia or any of its political subdivisions. Since there is no language in the Judicial Retirement System dealing with prior service in this State or its political subdivisions, it was necessary to transfer the beneficial language in the Public Employees Retirement System to the Judicial Retirement System. The majority therefore adopted the definition of a political subdivision from W.Va.Code § 5-10-2(4) (1979) of the Public Employees Retirement System. For some reason no mention was made of W.Va.Code § 5-10-2(5) (1979) of the same system, defining participating public employer to mean: ... the State of West Virginia, any board, commission, department, institution or spending unit, and shall include any agency created by rule of the supreme court of appeals having full-time employees, which for the purpose of this article shall be deemed a department of state government; and any political subdivision in the State which has elected to cover its employees, as defined in this article, under the West Virginia public employees retirement system. (emphasis added). The majority opinion simply granted retroactive governmental service to judges without any regard to whether the employer of the judge had been a covered employer, i.e., making the payments into the Public Employees Retirement System as set forth in the act. The doctrine of beneficial transferability took the credit for governmental service as defined in the Public Employees Retirement System and transferred it to the Judicial Retirement System without the requirement that the employer must be a participating employer.