Court Opinion

ID: 9518314
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:49:40.446392+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:28:16.402864
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice House, dissenting: I too am in complete accord with the views expressed in the Sommers and Porter cases that a retired fireman’s pension cannot be constitutionally increased, but that is not the issue. The question here, whether the constitutional prohibition extends to widows, has been fully answered in the negative by the Barrett cases, (370 Ill. 464 and 370 Ill. 478,) where it was held that appropriations to the widow of a member of the General Assembly and to the widows of three circuit judges, respectively, were proper. The rationale of those cases was that the intent of the framers of the constitution in prescribing the prohibition was to remove the temptation of yielding to pressure and persuasion from public officers, thereby closing the door to corruption and fraud, but that appropriations to widows bear no relation to such prohibition. The majority adhere, albeit somewhat vaguely, to the Barrett cases asserting that there the legislature recognized a moral obligation in voting the appropriations, but infer that no similar moral design or intent can be gathered from the amendment to section 6 of the Fireman’s Pension Fund Act. This reasoning is difficult, if not impossible, to follow. How can we say that the General Assembly recognized a moral obligation to widows of its members and widows of circuit judges, but saw no moral obligation to increase pensions of widows of deceased firemen ? It seems more realistic to say that the legislature recognized economic factors in increasing the pensions of widows in 1947 from slightly more than 20% of their deceased husband’s retiring salary to 40%, which in this case would amount to an increase from $45 per month to $86 per month. The increased cost of living has worked a real and substantial hardship upon persons having a fixed income. The legislature has recognized the problem of the rising cost of living by statutes increasing salaries, pensions, workmen’s compensation payments, and many others. I think it was their intention to do likewise here. The 1951 amendment added to the word “widow” the words “of any active or retired fireman.” It is a strained interpretation to say that the purpose of the amendment was to confine increased benefits to widows of firemen who had been in active service on the effective date of the amendment, in the face of the plain wording which says it shall apply to the widow of “any” active or retired fireman. The design to increase pensions of retired firemen’s widows may have been obscure in the 1947 amendment, and this court so held in the Sommers-case, but to me the 1951 amendment definitely manifests'an intent that relief be extended as well to those who became widowed after the retirement of their fireman husbands.