Court Opinion

ID: 9629348
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:41:02.619349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:48.135223
License: Public Domain

SCIRICA, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
This case presents the question whether retirement payments the University of Pittsburgh (“University”) made to former tenured faculty members were “wages” subject to FICA tax. Although the matter is not free from doubt, I would hold the payments were not wages because they were given primarily in exchange for the faculty members’ relinquishment of tenure, which is a property interest in continued employment absent cause or financial exigency. See North Dakota State Univ. v. United States, 255 F.3d 599 (8th Cir.2001).
The problem of defining “wages” in this case presents a contrast between two possible concepts of faculty tenure at the University. Is tenure, as the Government contends, analogous to seniority rights and other benefits earned in the course of employment? Or, as the University argues, does tenure mark the beginning of a new employment relationship distinct from pri- or service? According to the first view, the payments at issue here were remuneration for employment and were subject to FICA tax. According to the second view, the payments were not remuneration for employment, because they were given primarily in exchange for the relinquishment of property rights the faculty received at the beginning of the tenured relationship. The District Court, following North Dakota, agreed with the University. The majority reverses and adopts the Government’s view. I would affirm and follow North Dakota.
I.
I would hold the payments made in exchange for the relinquishment of tenure by the University faculty members were not subject to taxation under the Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) because they were not “wages” as that term is defined at 26 U.S.C. § 3121(a).
A.
The Internal Revenue Code requires employers and employees to pay taxes under FICA on all “wages” an employee receives “with respect to employment.” 26 U.S.C. § 3Í01(a)-(b). “Wages” means “all remuneration for employment, including the cash value of all remuneration (including benefits) paid in any medium other than cash.” Id. § 3121(a). “Employment” is “any service, of whatever nature, performed ... by an employee for the person employing him.”14 Id. § 3121(b). “Service,” in turn, includes “not only work actually done but the entire employer-employee relationship for which compensation is paid to the employee by the employer.” Soc. Sec. Bd. v. Nierotko, 327 U.S. 358, 365-66, 66 S.Ct. 637, 90 L.Ed. 718 (1946). It is undisputed that the payments here were taxable income for ordinary income tax purposes. But not every item of income is wages subject to FICA taxation. See Cent. Ill. Pub. Serv. Co. v. United States, 435 U.S. 21, 25, 98 S.Ct. 917, 55 L.Ed.2d 82 (1978) (discussing the defini*176tion of “wages” and noting “many items qualify as income and yet clearly are not wages”). The question here is whether the payments were remuneration for employment.
The Government contends the early retirement payments are wages because they arise out of the employment relationship and are analogous to severance payments and payments for relinquishment of accrued seniority rights, which IRS rulings designate as wages. See Rev. Rul. 74-252, 1974-1 C.B. 287; Rev. Rul. 75-44, 1975-1 C.B. 15. The University argues the payments are not wages because they were given in exchange for the professors’ relinquishment of enforceable property rights in tenure, and are analogous to “buy-outs” of unexpired contract rights — payments that, under another IRS ruling, are not wages. See Rev. Rul. 58-301, 1958-1 C.B. 23.15
B.
The Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause protects interests in property to which a person has a legitimate claim of entitlement. Bd. of Regents of State Colls. v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). Property is not limited to “actual ownership of real estate, chattels, or money,” id. at 572, 92 S.Ct. 2701, and it includes “interests that a person has already acquired in specific benefits.” Id. at 576, 92 S.Ct. 2701. We have recognized that tenured professors at public universities hold a property interest in their tenure, so that procedural due process is necessary when the university seeks to dismiss a tenured professor. McDaniels v. Flick, 59 F.3d 446, 454 (3d Cir.1995); San Filippo v. Bongiovanni, 961 F.2d 1125, 1135 (3d Cir.1992).
The payments at issue here were not wages because, as in North Dakota, they were given in exchange for the relinquishment of property rights in tenure that were established at the beginning of the tenure relationship between the faculty members and the University.
II.
As some courts and commentators have observed,16 defining tenure can be a vexing task. But the University’s Faculty Policies, which appear in the record here, provide guidance. The concept of tenure that emerges from the record more closely resembles a right established at the onset of a new relationship than the types of benefits at-will employees earn over time. I would hold payments for relinquishment of the latter type of rights are wages, but those for the former type are not.
Two core aspects of the University’s tenure policy distinguish the tenure right from certain job benefits earned over time that may be viewed as remuneration for employment.
A.
First, as in North Dakota, the process by which tenure is awarded at the Univer*177sity here distinguishes tenure from rights earned through service during the employment relationship.
The University’s “tenure stream” is composed of faculty who are eligible to receive tenure and those who already have tenure. The tenure stream includes instructors, assistant professors, associate professors, and professors. Only associate professors and professors can have tenure. A faculty member without tenure can serve only for a limited time in the tenure stream — usually seven years. At the end of that period, either the faculty member receives tenure or his or her service in the tenure stream is terminated. But this “probationary” period is a prerequisite to tenure and is not analogous to the time period during which employees accrue different types of seniority rights. The University’s policies show tenure is more than a recognition of satisfactory work. Rather, the decision to grant or deny tenure depends on myriad qualitative factors and calls for an evaluation of each candidate’s capacity for research, teaching, and contributing to knowledge. Moreover, the University’s policy specifically imposes certain “Non-Merit Considerations,” such as financial resources, personnel needs,17 and curriculum demands.18 These latter criteria may depend not on the individual professor’s role at the University, but on extrinsic forces. Accordingly, the grant or denial of tenure cannot be viewed strictly as an evaluation of whether a professor has performed adequately during employment, as is the case with the accrual of seniority rights in other circumstances.
As the majority observes, the Sixth Circuit, in Appoloni v. United States, 450 F.3d 185, 185 (6th Cir.2006), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 127 S.Ct. 1123, 166 L.Ed.2d 891 (2007), held early retirement payments to retired public school teachers given in exchange for the teachers’ statutory tenure rights were FICA wages. But I believe the tenure right at issue in Appolo-ni is distinguishable from the university tenure here and in North Dakota.
In Appoloni, the public school teachers obtained tenure automatically upon completion of a probationary period. Id. at 194. But here, just as in North Dakota, tenure is “much more than a recognition for past services,” 255 F.3d at 605, and “is not automatic upon completing service for a specified time period, which is a hallmark of ordinary seniority rights.” Id. In cases like Appoloni, the teacher’s past satisfactory work during the probationary period may be seen as consideration for the tenure award, but not so here where the tenure decision is marked by such broad discretion and “Non-Merit Considerations.” See id. at 606 (rejecting “the government’s underlying premise that tenure accrues over time and is similar to seniority”).
B.
Second, the rights of tenure, along with its purposes, show that it marks a new relationship between professor and university.
It is undisputed here that tenured faculty at the University can be terminated only for “cause” or “financial exigency,” *178and only after a hearing. According to the University, tenure, once awarded, is “obligatory for the University, optional with the faculty member.” As we have recognized, tenure at a public university is a right in “property” that entitles its holder to procedural due process. San Filippo, 961 F.2d at 1135. The right to indefinite employment absent cause or financial exigency may carry substantial economic value even though it is not the type of property that typically is traded. See Vail v. Bd. of Educ. of Paris Union Sch. Dist. No. 95, 706 F.2d 1435, 1451 (7th Cir.1983) (Posner, J., dissenting) (“A contract that gives a teacher the right to be employed till he retires is special, for unless he is old or rich the present value of his tenure right is probably his biggest asset.”), aff'd by an equally divided court, 466 U.S. 377, 104 S.Ct. 2144, 80 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984). By relinquishing tenure, the faculty members gave up this value.
Tenure serves several purposes. It gives the University “continuity in its experienced faculty and in the functions for which they are responsible.” It helps the University foster “the independence of the mind and the freedom to inquire.” It “constitutes recognition by the University that a [tenured faculty member] is qualified by achievements and contributions to knowledge as to be ranked among the most worthy of the members of the faculty engaged in scholarly endeavors: research, teaching, professional training, or creative intellectual activities of other kinds.” And importantly, as the University notes, tenure serves an instrumental purpose in granting prospective rights that protect faculty members’ academic freedom.
For all of these reasons, I agree with the North Dakota court’s characterization of tenure as establishing a different relationship with the University, not a mere continuation of service with added benefits. 255 F.3d at 606. Tenure is the second of “two successive relationships with the university,” id., and is “a significantly different status — effectively a new job.” Id. (quoting Mayberry v. Dees, 663 F.2d 502, 516 (4th Cir.1981)). As in North Dakota, the property rights faculty members relinquished here were not accrued through duration of satisfactory employment, but were instead granted at the beginning of the separate tenured relationship with the University, a beginning marked by the recognition of superior achievement and “Non-Merit Considerations.” The payments are more analogous to buy-outs of unexpired contract rights than to severance payments or payments for the relinquishment of rights of at-will employees. Accordingly, I would hold payments for the relinquishment of the property right in tenure at the University were not remuneration for employment and were not subject to FICA taxation.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the judgment of the District Court.

. The statute includes some exceptions, not relevant here, to the definitions of “wages” and “employment.”

. As the majority notes, in Revenue Ruling 2004-110, 2004-2 C.B. 960, the IRS modified and superseded Revenue Ruling 58-301. But Revenue Ruling 2004-110 by its terms does not apply to payments made before January 12, 2005, in circumstances substantially the same as in Revenue Ruling 58-301. Since the payments at issue here occurred between 1996 and 2001, and the circumstances here are substantially the same as in Revenue Ruling 58-301, I would hold Revenue Ruling 2004-110 is inapplicable to the payments in this case.

. See, e.g., North Dakota State Univ. v. United States, 84 F.Supp.2d 1043, 1050 (D.N.D.1999), aff'd, 255 F.3d 599 (8th Cir.2001); Ralph S. Brown & Jordan E. Kurland, Academic Tenure and Academic Freedom, 53 Law & Contemp. Probs. 325, 325 (1990).

. For example, the tenure policy states that in order to "retain flexibility within the anticipated resources of the University, the proportion of tenured to non-tenured faculty must not rise to a level that would impair the University’s or school's capacity to respond to changing demands for its services."

. Relevant factors include "the current standards of the relevant discipline or profession at large and the requirements of the candidate’s department or school at the time of the recommendation and for the then-foreseeable future.”