Opinion ID: 2172904
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Sufficiency of Dombrowski's Interest

Text: The dispositive question on this issue, as the parties have correctly recognized, is whether Dombrowski's interest is sufficient to allow him to maintain a mandamus action in his own name. The city contends that in an action to enforce § 2-308 of the Charter only the Attorney General or the District Attorney of Philadelphia County has the requisite standing. Appellants insist that their position is supported by the language of the Mandamus Act of 1893, Act of June 8, 1893, P.L. 345, § 3, 12 P.S. § 1913; appellee disputes this point and further argues that, if the cases decided pursuant to the Mandamus Act do support appellants, these cases were impliedly overruled by the promulgation of Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 1092, one of the rules governing mandamus actions. [4] We are convinced that Rule 1092 has not broadened the standing for private mandamus actions for the simple reason that, with the possible exception of Davidson v. Beaver Falls Council, 348 Pa. 207, 34 A. 2d 505 (1943), our cases have charted a consistent course in this area both before and after the effective date of Rule 1092. Nevertheless, this consistent course, we believe, demonstrates that Dombrowski's interest is sufficient to support a mandamus action brought in his private capacity. Section 3 of the Mandamus Act provides: The writ of mandamus may issue upon the application of any person beneficially interested. (Emphasis supplied.) Section 4, Act of June 8, 1893, P.L. 345, § 4, 12 P.S. § 1914, then states: When the writ is sought to procure the enforcement of a public duty, the proceedings shall be prosecuted in the name of the commonwealth on the relation of the attorney general: . . . [5] Two of our early cases, both decided prior to the adoption of the Mandamus Act of 1893, tell us that a private litigant may maintain a mandamus action to enforce a public duty when that plaintiff has an individual and beneficial interest in the litigation independent of that which is held by the public at large. Commonwealth ex rel. Snyder v. Mitchell, 82 Pa. 343 (1876); Heffner v. Commonwealth ex rel. Kline, 28 Pa. 108 (1857). Subsequent cases did not work a change in this rule. Loraine v. Pittsburg, Johnstown, Ebensburg & Eastern Railroad Co., 205 Pa. 132, 54 Atl. 580 (1903) may be fairly termed the leading post-Mandamus Act, pre-rules of civil procedure case on the standing of a private plaintiff. Loraine, a coal mine operator, sued defendant-common carrier in mandamus, alleging that the railroad had failed to perform its statutory duty as a common carrier by its refusal to transport plaintiff's coal unless that coal was to be sold to a coal company specified by the carrier. We held that this private plaintiff had standing and that the writ should issue, stating the proper rule for standing as follows (id. at 136, 54 Atl. at 581-82): True, the act directs that when the writ is sought to procure the performance of a public duty only the proceeding shall be in the name of the commonwealth at the relation of the attorney general or the district attorney of the proper county, but it also provides in the 3d section, that it shall issue on the application of any person beneficially interested. While we have no doubt, that these words would give standing to any one interested to make application to the attorney general for his intervention, they just as clearly save to each person the right existing before the act, to sue out the writ when he seeks to protect an interest, special to himself as distinct from the general public.  (Emphasis supplied.) See also Stegmaier v. Jones, 203 Pa. 47, 52 Atl. 56 (1902). The Loraine Court declared that it was irrelevant that plaintiff was not the only shipper so restricted by the railroad for his injury, along with others so situated, was special. [6] The Loraine analysis was employed in Commonwealth ex rel. Attorney General v. Mathues, 210 Pa. 372, 59 Atl. 961 (1904), a case presenting the converse issue, i.e., did the Attorney General have standing to maintain the mandamus action. Plaintiff-Attorney General alleged that the state treasurer had refused to disburse funds appropriated for an increase in judicial salaries. The lower court opinion, reprinted in our reports, stressed that this withholding of judicial salaries was a matter of sufficient public concern to allow the Attorney General to request the writ. However, despite the reading given Mathues in the city's brief, the opinion in no way intimates that an individual judge, if he so wished, would have lacked standing to sue and, in fact, the opinion states that his special interest, shared with other judges, would support a private mandamus action. [7] The leading post-rules case again reiterates that the relevant inquiry is whether the private plaintiff possesses an interest which is not shared by the public at large. In Dorris v. Lloyd (No. 1), 375 Pa. 474, 100 A. 2d 924 (1953), cert. denied, 347 U.S. 936, 74 S. Ct. 632 (1954) plaintiff, as county chairman of the Democratic Party, brought mandamus against the Board of Elections of Luzerne County, alleging that the Board had failed, as required by statute, to control the conduct of primary elections and to investigate election frauds. We stated (id. at 477, 100 A. 2d at 926): Even before the passage of the [mandamus] act it had been uniformly held that when public rights are to be subserved only public officers may, ordinarily, apply for the writ, and that a private individual cannot do so unless he can show some particular right or privilege of his own independent of that held in common with the public at large: [citations omitted]. Since the passage of the act there have been numerous authorities holding to the same effect, namely that, where the duty of an officer under a statute is a public one, it can be enforced only at the suit of the attorney general or the district attorney of the proper county or by a private citizen who has a specific and independent legal right or interest in himself different from that of the public at large or who has suffered an injury special and peculiar to himself: [citations omitted.] [8] (Emphasis supplied.) Against these cases, spanning one hundred years and announcing the rule that our inquiry is whether the private plaintiff is asserting an interest different from that of the public at large, appellants pit one authority, Davidson v. Beaver Falls Council, 348 Pa. 207, 34 A. 2d 505 (1943). They insist that Davidson stands for the proposition that we must examine not whether the private plaintiff has an interest distinct from the public at large (here, the citizens of Philadelphia) but whether his interest is distinct from that which he shares with all other members of the municipal retirement system. [9] Davidson was a Beaver Falls policeman. He claimed that Beaver Falls should have established a retirement system for policemen in 1930 rather than 1941, the date it was established, and asked that Beaver Falls be compelled to contribute at maximum rates all it could, since 1930, have contributed. In what is, at best, an alternative holding, [10] we said (id. at 210, 34 A. 2d at 506): The establishment and administration of the Police Pension Fund is a public duty; Davidson's interest was not different from that of other policemen in or other residents of the city. He may or may not in the future become eligible to retirement pay. He is not now suffering any special private damage or injury differing in kind and not alone in degree from that suffered by the residents generally. To the extent that Davidson states that the relevant group is not the public at large, it is a departure from both prior and subsequent cases and therefore is disapproved. Furthermore, it is clearly distinguishable even if all its language is given a broad reading. Davidson was entitled to retirement benefits only after a minimum of twenty years continuous service. See Act of June 23, 1931, P.L. 932, § 4302, as amended, 53 P.S. § 39302 (Supp. 1967). At the time of suit, he had been serving as a Beaver Falls policeman continuously from February 21, 1928, a period of less than twenty years. See Davidson v. City of Beaver Falls, 38 Pa. D. & C. 47, 49 (C.P. Beaver Cty. 1939). He was thus, at the time he brought his action, not entitled to retirement benefits and, as will be discussed more fully in text, infra, he had no vested interest in future retirement benefits which he might never, by virtue of either death or early retirement, receive. See Anderson, Vested Rights in Public Retirement Benefits in Pennsylvania, 34 Temple L.Q. 255, 259-60 (1961). The sequel to Davidson, Commonwealth ex rel. Coghlan, District Attorney v. Beaver Falls Council, 355 Pa. 164, 49 A. 2d 365 (1946), a suit brought by the Commonwealth to compel the same payments demanded in Davidson, makes clear that Davidson's action was dismissed not because the relevant group was other than the public at large but for the simple reason that Davidson had not yet obtained a vested interest in retirement benefits. Having concluded that the correct test for standing is whether Dombrowski possesses an interest in the proper administration of Philadelphia's retirement system distinct from that which he shares with the general public, we must determine if appellee does have such an interest. The city insists that, since appellee will not be entitled to retirement benefits until 1972, he lacks the requisite interest. [11] We believe this argument to be unsound for it ignores both the fact that appellee's interest in his retirement benefits is vested and that, having fulfilled those requirements which pre-condition his right to receive these benefits, he has entered into a contractual relationship with the city. Of course, appellee's vested right to his retirement benefits, and his contractual relationship to the city and its retirement system are interests he does not share with the general public and which he holds independent of the public. A long line of our decisions holds that, when an employee has satisfied the conditions placed by a retirement system upon his right to retirement benefits (there is no dispute that appellee has satisfied these conditions, e.g., years of continuous service, contributions to the system, etc.), his right to retirement benefits becomes vested with only the enjoyment thereof postponed. Harvey v. Allegheny County Retirement Board, 392 Pa. 421, 428, 141 A. 2d 197, 201 (1958); Hickey v. Pittsburgh Pension Board, 378 Pa. 300, 311, 106 A. 2d 233, 238 (1954); Baker v. Retirement Board of Allegheny County, 374 Pa. 165, 97 A. 2d 231 (1953); Haldeman v. Hillegass, 335 Pa. 375, 384, 386, 6 A. 2d 801, 808, 809 (1939); Retirement Board of Allegheny County v. McGovern, 316 Pa. 161, 174 Atl. 400 (1934). It is equally well established that the employee's relationship vis-a-vis the municipality and its retirement system is contractual. See Harvey v. Allegheny County Retirement Board, supra at 431-32, 141 A. 2d at 203; Wright v. Allegheny County Retirement Board, 390 Pa. 75, 134 A. 2d 231 (1957); Hickey v. Pittsburgh Pension Board, supra at 305, 309, 106 A. 2d at 236, 238; Haldeman v. Hillegass, supra at 384, 386, 6 A. 2d at 808, 809. The relationship between these two rules has been aptly stated by First Deputy Philadelphia City Solicitor Anderson, counsel for appellants: The entire theory of `vested rights' in public retirement benefits is a direct outgrowth of the contractual concept. [12] The relevancy of Dombrowski's vested right and his contract with Philadelphia as this bears upon his standing is illustrated by Edelman v. Boardman, Secretary of Revenue, 332 Pa. 85, 2 A. 2d 393 (1938). Edelman brought a mandamus action in his own name to compel the Secretary of Revenue to escheat certain property so that plaintiff could collect his informer's fee. We held that Edelman had standing (supra at 91-92, 2 A. 2d at 396): It is true that where the contractual obligation is one which is also imposed by law, it may be enforced by mandamus, not because of the contract but in spite of it; the party to the contract in such a case acquires an interest special to himself as distinguished from that of the general public, thus enabling him to bring the [mandamus] proceeding in his own name. Similarly, Dombrowski's contractual relationship with the city stems from a duty imposed by law, i.e., the creation and administration of a retirement system, and, as a party to the contract, he has standing. Finally, with the possible exception of Davidson, we have consistently entertained mandamus actions brought by a member of a retirement system to enforce statutory commands which would benefit all members of the system. [13] Thus, in Retirement Board of Allegheny County v. McGovern, supra at 178, 174 Atl. at 408, this Court noted: While an employee may have an interest or vested right in the fund to protect it from insolvency, that right cannot be worked out by refusing to contribute, but rather in an effort to compel the county in a proper proceeding to make good its payments as directed by the legislature, or to redress other bad practices. The proper proceeding to which McGovern referred is obviously mandamus for the simple reason that McGovern was a mandamus action brought by a private plaintiff to compel the municipality to appropriate funds which would benefit all members of the retirement system, and the issuance of the writ was affirmed. See also Haldeman v. Hillegass, supra at 381, 6 A. 2d at 806; Ackerman v. City of Williamsport, 11 Pa. D. & C. 2d 421 (C.P. Lycoming Cty. 1957); Firemen's Pension Fund v. Minnaugh, 80 Pa. D. & C. 297, 309 (C.P. Dauphin Cty. 1951). It could be argued, as does the dissent, that McGovern was not brought by a private plaintiff. This mandamus action was instituted by the majority of the retirement board, consisting of one county commissioner, the treasurer, controller and two persons elected from the system, against a minority of the board. None of these parties is the Attorney General or the district attorney of the appropriate county; they are private plaintiffs in the only sense here relevant, i.e., since the parties in McGovern were neither the Attorney General or a district attorney, they could bring an action under the Mandamus Act only if they were beneficially interested persons. It should be evident that the term private plaintiff is used throughout our decision to encompass that group of plaintiffs not the Attorney General or the district attorney of the appropriate county. Furthermore, to hold that members of the retirement board have a sufficient beneficial interest to bring mandamus while members of the system do not is the equivalent of insisting that persons not having a vested right to benefits may sue but those having such a right cannot. As recently as 1966 we entertained a mandamus action brought by a private plaintiff to compel payments. See Taylor v. Abernathy, 422 Pa. 629, 222 A. 2d 863 (1966). If anything, plaintiff-Taylor's interest was weaker than that of Dombrowski for, at the time suit was brought, under the existing retirement system Taylor was no longer entitled to any retirement benefits. [14] We thus conclude that Dombrowski's vested interest in his retirement benefits and his contractual relationship with the city are interests he holds independent of the public at large. [15]