Opinion ID: 1156349
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the doctrine of beneficial transferability

Text: All judicial pronouncements must stand on some pretense of law. The Court, therefore, needed some law on which to base its holding. No existing standard would support their holdings, so the Court created a new doctrine: The Doctrine of Beneficial Transferability. [16] Evidently the doctrine provides that a court may transfer statutory language from one legislative plan (the Public Employees Retirement System) to another plan (the Judicial Retirement System), and may transfer only those parts of the language which give the greatest benefits and disregard any of those parts which are not beneficial. The majority opinion in Dostert cites no authority for this proposition. (Indeed, none exists!!) An examination of the different areas where the doctrine was applied shows its weakness.
The majority first scanned the other retirement systems like an eager shopper leafing through the Sears catalog: With respect to the military service credit provision, we note that general grants of retirement credit for military service are found in three of this State's other retirement systems. See West Virginia Code § 5-10-15 (1979 Replacement Vol.) (public employees); West Virginia Code § 15-2-28(b) (1979 Replacement Vol.) (department of public safety); West Virginia Code § 18-7A-17 (Supp.1984) (teachers). Furthermore, it is important to note that many of the judicial retirement systems in other states contain general grants of prior military service credit. See, e.g., Ala.Code § 12-18-5(b) (Supp.1984); Fla. Stat.Ann. § 121.111 (West 1982); Mich. Comp.Laws Ann. § 38.813b (West Supp. 1984); Miss.Code Ann. § 25-11-117 (Supp.1983); N.Y.Retire. & Soc.Sec.Law §§ 24(d), 24(e), 29, 29-a, 30, and 31 (McKinney 1971 & Supp.1983); Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 145.30.1 (Page 1984); 71 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. § 5304 (Purdon Supp. 1984); S.C.Code Ann. § 9-8-50(3) (Supp. 1983); Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 43.103 (Vernon Supp.1983); Utah Code Ann. § 49-7a-41 (Supp.1983); Wis.Stat.Ann. § 40.02(15)(c) (West Supp.1983). (Footnote added to text) [17] After finding what they wanted, the majority placed an order. They took the second paragraph of W.Va.Code § 51-9-6 [18] and rewrote it. The part of the section granting service credit for active military service during a judge's term of office was declared unconstitutional because it violated the constitutional provision against dual office holding in W.Va. Const. Art. VIII § 7. The section provides that a violation of that provision vacates the judicial office. [19] The majority simply ignored that admonition and instead struck those words from the paragraph. The military service credit portion of Section 6 reads as follows: In determining eligibility for the benefits provided by this section, any portion of the term of office of any judge of a court of record which shall have elapsed while such judge was on active duty ... in the armed forces of the United States shall be considered as served... The majority declared the emphasized portion of Section 6 unconstitutional and deleted it from the statute. [20] That left the section to read In determining eligibility for the benefits provided by this section ... active duty ... in the armed forces of the United States shall be considered as served.... [21] West Virginia Code § 51-9-16 allows sections, subsections, clauses, phrases or requirements of the judicial pension system to be declared unconstitutional without affecting the validity of the remaining portions. This Court has held on numerous occasions that unconstitutional portions of a statute may be deleted without affecting the remainder of the statute, unless the remainder is incapable of being executed in accordance with legislative intent. The Court in Dostert made no attempt to be consistent with legislative intent. Instead they used selective editing to rewrite the statute contrary to legislative intent. We do not have the power to selectively edit so as to bring about a material change. [22] This is judicial legislation, which by definition is unconstitutional and therefore void. [23] The majority opinion went on to say: Accordingly, we limit the scope of our holding in conformance with the severability statutes and case law and the presumed intent of the legislature, and hold that military service, or its equivalent, rendered during a period of compulsory military service shall be considered as served under W.Va.Code § 51-9-6 for disability and retirement benefits. (Emphasis added). [24] Can anyone believe that the Court's revisions were the intent of the legislature, either actual or presumed? The legislature intended the provision to apply to military service by a judge who had his term of office interrupted, not to all military service, and there is no provision in any state retirement system that provides for military service or its equivalent. [25] Section 6 does not even allow for that interpretation in the redrafted form. The doctrine of beneficial transferability, therefore, takes this military service credit of the Public Employees Retirement System and transfers it to the Judicial Retirement System.
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.
The lid on Pandora's box has been ripped asunder, and the hand of rhetoric has reached in and taken the skeletal form of the Public Employees Retirement System to be the new skeletal form of the Judicial Retirement System. But, alas, why stop there? If full benefit of the retroactive governmental service was to benefit those who were rewriting the Judicial Retirement System, it was necessary to graft another appendage to the skeletal form, having to do with the definition of full-time and part-time service. Note 37 of Dostert points out that the legislature, by statute defined full-time employees to include members of the State Legislature, the clerk of the House of Delegates, the clerk of the State Senate, members of the legislative body of any political subdivision, and judges of the State Court of Claims. These are employees elected or appointed for definite terms. The majority used that grant as a basis for granting full credit to judges in the judicial pension system for part-time service to the State or a political subdivision. This application of the doctrine of beneficial transferability goes far beyond even the statute from which it is borrowed. This Court in Campbell v. Kelly, 157 W.Va. 453, 202 S.E.2d 369 (1974) had reviewed the Public Employees Retirement System as it applied to the West Virginia legislature. In doing so they struck out several special benefits the legislators provided for themselves. [26] The Court did not, however, strike down the provision of one year's credit for one year's elected service or one year's tenure service. Because certain elected and appointed non-executive branch officers and employees are granted a full year's credit service without actually working the necessary sixteen days of a month for ten months in any one year to qualify for a year's credited service, the Court in Dostert granted all members of the judiciary full-time credit for any part-time service. That is utter nonsense. None of those tenured non-executive branch officers and employees who received full-time credit for so-called part-time service under the Public Employees Retirement System got a year's credit when they worked two months as a clerk of a legislative committee, worked part-time for an administrative agency of the executive, or worked part-time for a political subdivision prior to election or appointment to the tenured class, or after leaving the tenured class. Further, if the grant of credit was special legislation, that evil would be better cured by restricting credit for legislative service to actual time served, than by extending credit for a myriad of part-time positions bearing no relation to judiciary service. There is no rationale, no logic, that says certain non-executive elective officers granted a full year's credit for elective term applies in any manner to the judicial branch of government. A legislator receives no full-year credit for part-time governmental service performed prior to his election or performed after he leaves legislative service. [27] The justices of this Court granted themselves a right that no other person had.
The grant of retroactive governmental service by Court opinion requires some methodology for making retirement payments to the fund for the period of retroactive governmental service claimed. Of course the Court rose to the task. By judicial enactment, a methodology was created for retroactive contributions to the Judicial Retirement System. In note 35 of the Dostert opinion the majority uses the compensation rate of payments made to a special judge ($15.00 per day in 1949; currently $100.00 per day) as a guide. Fifteen dollars multiplied by 250 working days in a calendar year produces a salary of $3,750.00, of which the judge would then be required to pay 6%, or $225.00. [28] This calculation has no basis in reality and allows a justice to, in essence, buy a dollar for seven cents. [29] Apparently if the judge electing to seek credit for prior governmental service made the payment promptly, he would not have to pay the 4% interest, although that is not entirely clear. Dostert relies on W.Va.Code § 51-9-5 (1981) for the authority for the payment into the Judicial Retirement System, but the legislature never intended the per diem compensation of special judges to be the basis for contributions to the Judicial Retirement System. Even if W.Va.Code § 51-9-5 would allow public employees credit to be given as judicial service, the 6% payment should be based on the salary paid to judges at the time for the years of claimed retroactive governmental service, not on some contrived salary of $3,750.00 which was neither paid to nor received by any of those claiming retroactive governmental service, and payment should be accompanied by interest at a realistic rate, compounded annually.