Opinion ID: 753713
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Graboski Appellants' Claim

Text: 62 The Graboski appellants claim that their VSF implementing legislation, 1970 N.Y.Laws chs. 876, 877, restricting eligibility for VSF benefits to for service retirees, impaired their contractual right to VSF payments created in their original CBAs between New York City and the UFA and UFOA. The UFA's and UFOA's CBA clauses allegedly creating this contractual right state: The purpose of [the VSF] shall be to provide a supplemental benefit on a variable annuity basis for Article I and IB [fire officer[s] or firemen,] as determined by the trustees. UFA CBA, Article VII, Section 6; UFOA CBA, Article X, Section 6. Because this language is virtually identical to the language in the CBA that we held in Castellano v. Board did not create contractual rights to VSF benefits, we reject this Contract Clause claim as well. See Castellano v. Board, 937 F.2d at 757. 63 The Graboski appellants next contend that the original VSF-implementing legislation, 1970 N.Y.Laws chs. 876, 877, itself created contractual rights in the VSF payments impaired by later amending legislation. For example, the original 1970 legislation defined the permissible class of VSF beneficiaries as, among others, [a]ny person who receives a retirement allowance by reason of having retired from service.... 1970 N.Y.Laws ch. 877 at §§ B19-40.00 subd. 5, B19-60.0 subd. 6. In 1972, the legislature amended from service to for service, explicitly characterizing the amendment as a correction of a typographical error. See 1972 N.Y.Laws chs. 1011, 1012. This amending legislation, appellants contend, impaired the contractual rights of non-for service retirees to VSF benefits. We disagree. 64 The New York Court of Appeals rejected a similar challenge by police officer retirees, holding definitively that the original 1970 VSF-implementing legislation created no contractual obligation to disburse VSF payments under New York law. See Ballentine v. Koch, 89 N.Y.2d 51, 651 N.Y.S.2d 362, 674 N.E.2d 292, 297-98 (1996). According to that court, the statutory scheme for payments of VSF benefits is highly conditional and discretionary; no retiree could be assured that funds for supplemental payments would be available, or that the payments, if made, would be of a certain amount or continue for any specified duration; and the statute itself expressly stipulated that it did not create any contractual rights as to the [VSF] payments. Id.; See Code at § 13-271(b)(2)(i) (Police officers' VSF: The legislature hereby declares that [the VSFs] shall not create or constitute membership in a pension ... system and shall not create or constitute a contract with any pension fund beneficiary....) (emphasis added); id. at § 13-385(b)(2)(i) (same for firefighters' VSF); id. at § 13-395(b)(2)(i) (same for fire officers' VSF). Because, under the 1970 implementing legislation, firefighters and fire officers are no more entitled to VSF benefits than were the police officers in Ballentine, any amending legislation affecting these appellants' VSF benefits--whether substantive or typographical--could not constitute an impairment in violation of the Contract Clause. See General Motors, 503 U.S. at 186, 112 S.Ct. at 1109-10.