Court Opinion

ID: 9756187
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:12:56.603957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:15.488695
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mb. Justice Cohen:
I dissent.
Section 7 (4) (b) of the plan does not, I believe, permit the committee to pay an amount less than the maximum. The vague standards set to guide the committee’s determination of the amount of benefits to be paid are inadequate to afford proper safeguards to the employes, and consequently, any other interpretation might well render the obligation of the defendant illusory.
In every contract which provides for the exercise of discretion by one of the parties thereto, there is an implied condition that the discretion will be properly exercised. Even assuming, therefore, that the committee had the authority to exercise discretion in determining the amount of benefit payments, it had to exercise that discretion in good faith and within the bounds of a reasonable judgment. Forrish v. Kennedy, 377 Pa. 370, 105 A. 2d 67 (1954); see also 56 C.J.S. 834 (1948) (cases collected).
The Bell Telephone Company contends that the standard to be followed under section 7 (4) (b) is “consideration [of] the degree of dependency [of the bene*459ficiary] and such other facts as [the committee] may deem pertinent.” Under the established public policy of the Commonwealth,1 there is no higher degree of dependency than that of a needy wife, not living with her husband through no fault of her own, and a needy, widoived mother.
The committee awarded the wife the sum of $1044 and the mother, $312. It could not, in good conscience, have given partially dependent distant relatives much less. Such a lack of consideration for the closeness of the relationship, as Avell as the degree of dependency, herein involved indicates either that the committee did not exercise mature judgment, or that its determination was actuated by bad faith. In my judgment, dependent Avives and mothers merit maximum payments, and on that basis, without contemplation of any other factors, I Avould affirm the judgment of the lower court.

 See, for example, The Support Law, Act of June 24, 1987, P. L. 2045, as amended, 62 P.S. §§1971-1977 (Supp.)