Court Opinion

ID: 9650682
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:48:34.673221+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:25.108649
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion bt
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
On May 11, 1956, M. Glosser and Sons, Inc., a Pennsylvania corporation, established a profit-sharing trust for the benefit of a certain number of its employees. David Glosser, William H. Glosser and Daniel Glosser were named the trustees in the written agreement setting up the trust. The trust became effective April 13, 1956, the eligibility of employees to participate therein being outlined in Article 2.01 of the Agreement: “ ‘Each employee is eligible to become a participant on the first participation date of this trust on or before which he shall have completed five full years of continuous employment with the employer.”
Subsequently all employees who had completed five years of continuous service with the company as of April 13, 1956 (the effective date of the plan) were notified that they had become beneficiaries under the plan and they executed an acceptance of the terms. William H. Glosser, one of the trustees was one of such employees,1 Samuel H. Cohen was another.
Samuel II. Cohen resigned on March 31, 1962 after a period of continuous employment of 16 years and a participant of the plan for six years. Following his resignation the trustees entered into an agreement to pay him 100% of the amount in the pension fund standing to his credit.
*554William H. Glosser resigned in October, 1963 after 33 years of continuous employment and participation in the plan for eight years from its inception. Later, the remaining trustees voted to pay William Glosser 100%, the amount standing to his credit.
Lester Edelstein was appointed trustee to replace William H. Glosser and the trustees then authorized obtaining a loan from the corporation to pay William H. Glosser the benefits due him.
Under Article 9.02 of the plan, a participant who resigns his employment is entitled to “a percentage of the full amount standing to his account . . . determined by the length of his continuous employment as follows:
Vested
Number of years Equity
6 years but less than 7 years 20%
8 years but less than 9 years 40%
14 years but less than 15 years 100 %”
and it was on the basis of this schedule that the trustees had voted to award Samuel Cohen and William H. Glosser 100% of the amount standing to their account.
All participants in the plan were notified of the action taken by the trustees. Thomas D. Maloney, Charles Rollman and Joan Mahan, other employees of the M. Glosser & Sons, Inc. who were participants in the plan, discussed this matter with the trustees Who stated that William Glosser had been overpaid and that the agreement would not be interpreted in the same way with regard to the other employees.
These employees registered no complaint at the time but after the death of David Glosser, chief executive officer and principal shareholder in the company, they decided to file the present suit in equity against the trustees to enjoin them from paying benefits to Samuel *555H. Cohen or to any other person except on the basis of the number of years the employee had participated in the plan and not on the total number of continuous years of employment. The employee-plaintiffs also prayed that William H. Glosser be required to repay the benefits he had received in excess of such interpretation of the agreement, stated to be $39,094.31.
Samuel H. Cohen filed preliminary objections which were sustained by the Court.
The action against William H. Glosser proceeded to trial and the chancellor entered a decree enjoining the payment of benefits to Samuel H. Cohen or any other person including William H. Glosser, in accordance with the interpretation advanced by the plaintiffs, particularly directing William IT. Glosser to pay back to the trustees the above mentioned sum of $39,-094.31. Glosser filed exceptions which were dismissed, the decree against him was made final and he has appealed.
The issue before us is a narrow one. In interpreting the amount a participant is to receive upon resignation under the terms of Article 9.02 above set forth, are we to count the years of continuous employment from the date he became a participant in the plan? Stated differently, should Cohen’s percentage of benefits upon resignation be based on the 16 years of continuous employment with the company or on the six years he was a participant in the plan? Should Glosser’s percentage of benefits upon resignation be based on his 33 years of continuous employment with the company or on the eight years he was a participant in the plan?
The answers are to be found in Article 9.02 because it expressly provides that the employee is entitled to “a percentage of the full amount standing to his account . . . determined by the length of his continuous employment. . It does not say “as determined by *556the number of years he was a participant in the plan” but I repeat, “by the length of his continuous employment”. This can only refer to the. period of his employment and not to his period of plan participation. Article 9.02 could not be any clearer in its intent to reward the employee for all the years of his continuous employment to the company and not merely for the few years he may have been a participant in the plan. Take the case of the employee such as Glosser who had started his employment long before the effective date of the plan and who had given the company the proverbial “best years of his life”. The plan was introduced in the later years of his service. Certainly, in all fairness, justice and good law, it could not be intended that this employee’s percentage of benefits were to be based only on the few years during which he was a participant in the plan. This is not a plan whereby the employee makes contributions thereto in which case it might be argued he could only get back benefits for the period during which he contributed. We have here a plan where the company made all the contributions to the trust fund for the employees as a profit-sharing measure specifically for the benefit of its employees in consideration of the service rendered them. Obviously, its aim would be to benefit those employees who had rendered long and continuous service, thus, by Article 9.02 it clearly provided that the benefits should be determined by the length of the employee’s continuous employment and not by the length of his participation in the plan.
The Majority states “Although it may appear inequitable that years of service prior to the adoption of the plan do not count toward benefits, from a business standpoint, there is no reason why they should count. The employee has already remained with the company, and it is thus unnecessary to give him inducements for those past years.” Such reasoning ignores the express *557terms of Article 9.02 as already stated and assumes that the company only intended to benefit employees for future service and not for continuous loyal service in the past. Such an assumption is not only unreasonable but is contrary to the express terms of Article 9.02. which the Majority has chosen to interpret in a manner which defies its very language.
According to the documents, the law and fair reasoning, the lower court’s decision should be reversed. Since it has not been, I accordingly dissent.

 All other employees completing five years of contiimons service after the effective date of the plan were admitted to participation on the first participation date following the completion of the five year service.