Court Opinion

ID: 9704280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:29:27.817637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:59.590880
License: Public Domain

PELLEGRINI, Judge,
concurring.
While I join with the majority’s well-reasoned decision, I write separately only to explain how this case differs from Roche v. State Employees’ Retirement Board, 731 A.2d 640 (Pa.Cmwlth.1999). At issue in both cases is whether a claimant’s pension is foreclosed by Section 3(a) of Act 140, 43 P.S. § 1313, requiring forfeiture of a pension when the claimant is found guilty or pleads guilty to certain enumerated crimes. Section 2 of Act 140, 43 P.S. § 1312, lists “crimes related to public office or public employment” that disqualify a claimant from receiving his or her pension in pertinent part as follows:
Any of the following criminal offenses as set forth in title 18 (crimes and offenses) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes or other enumerated statute when committed by a public official or public employee through his public office or position or when his public employment places him in a position to commit the crime:
(10) § 4902 (relating to perjury);
(11) § 4903(a) (relating to false swearing);
(12) § 4904 (relating to unsworn falsification to authorities);
(13) § 4906 (relating to false reports to law enforcement authorities);
In addition to the foregoing specific crimes, the term also includes all criminal offenses as set forth in federal law substantially the same as the crimes enumerated herein.
In Roche, -the Retirement Board only found and argued that the federal crime of false swearing was substantially similar to the federal crime of peijury and not that it was comparable to any of the other crimes enumerated above. No other claim was made by the Retirement Board that the federal false swearing was comparable to any other disqualifying crime. Answering the question presented to us of whether the federal crime of false swearing was substantially similar to the state crime of peijury and, if not, whether Roche was entitled to his pension, we reversed the Board’s decision forfeiting Roche’s pension benefits finding that the federal crime of false swearing was not substantially the same as the state crime of perjury. In this case, however, the issue is whether a federal crime of peijury is the same as the state crime of perjury. Because those crimes are substantially the same, I join with that majority’s analysis so holding.