Opinion ID: 1666451
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The School Board (appellant).

Text: The Board takes no position in the argument between the complainants and intervenors and MTA. Its position is that it has never had the authority to pay public money into the pension fund set up in 1916 by MTA and that the trial court was without authority to require the Board to do a thing (contribute money to the pension fund) which is beyond the corporate powers granted to it by the Legislature. The Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County is of statutory creation by the Legislature over 100 years ago, and is a separate and distinct school system and this distinctness is recognized in Sec. 270 of the Constitution of 1901. The history of the Board is stated in Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County v. Hahn, 246 Ala. 662, 22 So.2d 91. In that case, the Board was contending that the Teacher Tenure Act did not apply to Mobile County because of Sec. 270 of the Constitution. This court held that Section 270 does not inhibit the application of the teacher tenure provisions of said chapter to the teachers of Mobile County. We have studied carefully the various statutes relating to the Board and we are of the opinion that there is no legislative or other authority for the Board to contribute up to $30,000 per year for 20 years to the pension fund created by MTA. It is argued that the Board has the power to participate in the pension plan because the Act relating to the powers of the Board states: The said Board of School Commissioners    shall have full power to continue in force, revise, modify and improve, as to them may seem fit, the public school system now existing in the County of Mobile, and to make such by-laws, rules and regulations not inconsistent with the laws of this State, and of the United States, for the government of the Board and of said schools as they may deem expedient or necessary. We cannot agree. General clauses in charters of municipalities or state created agencies whereby the governing authorities are granted expressly or in equivalent terms, powers to do all things that in their discretion may seem necessary for the good order and welfare of the municipality or agency, are only efficient to grant to that body the right to exercise a discretion within the scope of the authority conferred. Pearson v. Duncan, 198 Ala. 25, 73 So. 406, 3 A.L.R. 242. We cannot find the necessary legislative authority in the portion of the statute quoted, supra. Another reason is the State Teachers' Retirement System. Besides agreeing to belong to MTA, a Mobile County teacher agreed to accept the State Retirement Plan, which, of course, provides for participation with and payment of public funds to help its financing. Tit. 52, § 372, provides: No other provision of law in any other statute which provides wholly or partly at the expense of the State of Alabama or of any political subdivision thereof for pensions or retirement benefits for teachers of the said state,    shall apply to members of the retirement system established by this chapter;   . This general statute, passed in 1940, applied to all Mobile County teachers employed since 1940 and, as we understand, there are only 18 retired teachers who are not receiving benefits under the State Retirement System, and 19 employed teachers not covered by that system. So except for those 37 teachers, the Board is prohibited by law from providing benefits for any teachers under the retirement system. But intervenors argue that the Board, even if it acted without authority, is estopped from asserting its lack of power. It is urged that the Board has participated because of its contractual requirement that all white teachers belong to MTA, and that the Board endorsed, approved and adopted the plan. The following was a part of every contract of employment submitted to every white teacher in Mobile County: The Rules and Regulations of the Board of School Commissioners require among other things, that you:       4. Accept the pension plan adopted by the Mobile Teachers Association, white, which provides for a sick benefit and an annuity, payments for which will be deducted monthly from salaries as follows: Teachers in service in the system from 1 to 5 years, ½ per cent; 6 to 10 years, 1 per cent; 11 to 20 years, 1½ percent; over 20 years, 2½ per cent. (This does not apply to Negro teachers.) While this requirement, and the consequent deductions were mandatory, the Board was merely an agency for collecting the deductions and paying them over to MTA, which had the sole authority in the handling and dispersal of the funds. The Board has done that since 1916 and would have continued to do it had MTA not changed its constitution and directed the Board to cease making the collections. It is admitted by all the parties that the Board has never been under any obligation to pay anything into the pension fund other than the salary deductions prior to the present decree. While there are some situations where political subdivisions or state created agencies are subject to the doctrine of estoppel, this is not such a situation. We apply the usual rule that such bodies cannot be estopped by doing that which they had no authority or right to do. County Board of Education of Coffee County v. City of Elba, 273 Ala. 151, 135 So.2d 812; Board of Zoning Adjustment for City of Lanett v. Boykin, 265 Ala. 504, 92 So.2d 906; Alabama Red Cedar Co. v. Tennessee Valley Bank, 200 Ala. 622, 76 So. 980; Chewacla Lime Works v. Dismukes, 87 Ala. 344, 6 So. 122, 5 L.R.A. 100; City of Eufaula v. McNab, 67 Ala. 588; Marion Bank v. Dunkin, 54 Ala. 471. Complainants argue that the pension plan is not statutory in its origin or creation, but is based upon contract between three parties, the Board, MTA and the individual teachers. Insofar as the Board is concerned, it is at once obvious that the court has made a new contract, by making the Board liable up to $30,000 in any one year, with a total maximum liability of $600,000 when it had never contracted to do more than collect and pay over small salary deductions of its teachers. Courts cannot tamper with and change the terms of contracts, Goodman v. Georgia Life Ins. Co., 189 Ala. 130, 66 So. 649; Melco System v. Receivers of Trans-America Ins. Co., 268 Ala. 152, 105 So.2d 43. We hold that the trial court erred in requiring the Board to pay public money into the MTA pension fund and as to that part of the decree, it must be reversed.