Court Opinion

ID: 9538646
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:38:57.150048+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:03.281407
License: Public Domain

SADLER, Justice (dissenting). I am unable to see how we can uphold the judgment before us without overruling State ex rel. Sena v. Trujillo, 46 N.M. 361, 129 P.2d 329, 142 A.L.R. 932, in which we expressly declined to follow the majority opinion in Bedford v. White, 106 Colo. 439, 106 P.2d 469, preferring instead the reasoning of a minority opinion by three of the justices. We held the Act before us violated art. IV, § 27, and art. IX, § 14, of the State Constitution, more especially the former, providing that no laws should be enacted giving extra compensation to any public officer, servant, agent or contractor after services are rendered or contract made. How an amendment to the existing law giving, in exchange for approximately $300, an annuity of $600 for life to former officers and employees already retired, without the rendition of additional services, can escape condemnation of this constitutional proviso has not been satisfactorily explained by the majority. If precedent alone would suffice to support the result declared, it may be conceded the majority have one in the case mainly relied upon in the prevailing opinion, namely, Raines v. Board of Trustees, 365 Ill. 610, 7 N.E.2d 489. In my judgment, however, the reasoning there advanced to support the result announced is directly contrary in certain material respects to principles deemed by us controlling in the Sena case. Furthermore, we cited with approval in the Sena case, decided some five years after the Raines case, the earlier Illinois case of Porter v. Loehr, 332 Ill. 353, 163 N.E. 689, holding invalid an' amended act which inr creased pension benefits of retired policemen without any obligation to render additional services. In the Raines case, the court seeks to distinguish Porter v. Loehr, supra, by the magic of calling it a pension act, as compared to a retirement act, seemingly unmindful of anomaly that the very act being construed was “an act in relation to an Illinois State Teachers’ Pension and Retirement Fund” (Emphasis mine) [365 Ill. 610, 7 N.E.2d 489], The reasoning advanced to support our conclusion holding invalid the Act involved in the Sena case, supra, in my judgment calls for the same result here as to the questioned section of the Act before us. The inability of the majority so id view the matter explains my disagreement with the prevailing opinion. Accordingly, I dissent.