Court Opinion

ID: 9705386
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:04:53.437956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:10.755679
License: Public Domain

WEISBERGER, Chief Justice,
with whom Justice GOLDBERG joins concurring and dissenting.
I concur with the majority in the portion of the opinion that affirms the trial justice’s holding that the retirement board properly terminated Mr. Romano’s future benefits so long as he fails to meet the conditions set forth by G.L.1956 § 36-10-36. Even though I believe that Romano had been grievously misled by the retirement counselor and by the then-executive director, Donald Hickey, concerning his ability to receive retirement benefits while he was working full time as a municipal employee, I recognize that our case law as well as that of the United States Supreme Court precludes the application of equitable estoppel into the future.
However, I strongly disagree with the majority’s remand of this case that implicitly directs a justice of the Superior Court to require Romano to repay all or a significant portion of the benefits that he received. In my judgment, this is an unnecessarily harsh result that exhalts rigidity over equitable considerations.
First of all, I do not believe that Romano committed any act that could be termed as malum in se. He committed no evil. The term “double-dipping” implies that an individual sought and obtained benefits to which he was not normally entitled. In the case at bar, Romano fulfilled all the conditions that entitled him to his retirement as an engineer for the Department of Transportation (DOT). He had served faithfully for twenty-five years. When the governor announced an early retirement incentive package in 1989, Romano took steps to determine whether retiring pursuant to that package would preclude his working as a municipal employee for the Town of Bristol (town). Almost at the same time as the governor’s announcement of the early retirement incentive, Romano was approached by the then-Administrator of the town, Halsey Herreshoff (Herreshoff), who offered him a position as director of public works for the town. After receiving this offer, Romano consulted a retirement counselor employed by the retirement board (board), Elaine Drapeau (Drapeau), to discuss his potential retirement from DOT. At that meeting, Romano informed Drapeau that he had been offered a position with the town, and asked whether accepting that position would affect his ability to collect his pension. Dra-peau informed Romano that employment with the town was permissible and that his pension benefits would not be adversely affected. The majority opinion suggests that Drapeau advised him that if he wanted to stay out of trouble, he should “go to the retirement board.” I do not accept the inference drawn by the majority from this statement. When Drapeau advised that “when you have any questions whatsoever about post-retirement reemployment, go to the retirement board to stay out of trouble,” it is far more likely that she meant that he should consult with the staff. Romano had no standing to invoke a meeting of the board and had every reason to believe that Drapeau spoke for the board.
Nevertheless, Romano and Herreshoff took an additional step to assure that his work for the town would not interfere with *48his state retirement benefits. Herreshoff contacted the then executive director of the board, Donald Hickey (Hickey), to clarify what Romano had been told. Hickey responded by mail that “[sjince the municipal system is a different system and only administered by us, there is no prohibition against a state retiree working for and belonging to a municipal system.” Herreshoff showed that letter to Romano, who interpreted it to mean that he could simultaneously collect his retirement pension and receive a salary from the town. Acting on this advice, he retired from his state job and almost immediately thereafter began working for the town. He also began contributing to the state municipal employees’ retirement system, which is administered by the state as part of the overall state retirement system.
For nearly seven years thereafter, Romano collected his state pension while he simultaneously worked for the town. In so doing, he committed no evil act. He worked for the salary that he collected. He was unaware of the provisions of § 36-10 — 36(b), which provides in pertinent part.
“Any member who has retired under the provisions of titles 16, 36, or 45 may be employed or reemployed by any municipality within the state for a period of not more than seventy-five (75) working days or one hundred fifty (150) half days with half day pay in any one calendar year without any forfeiture of or reduction of any retirement benefits and allowances the member is receiving or may receive as a retired member. Pension payments shall be suspended whenever this period is exceeded.” (Emphasis added.)
It was not until January 1996 that he received a letter signed by the new executive director, Joann Flaminio, informing him that his employment with the town rendered him ineligible to receive his pension.
I agree that, generally, equitable estop-pel will not be applied against a government agency acting in a public capacity. However, “this [C]ourt has applied the doctrine of equitable estoppel against administrative and municipal authorities under circumstances where justice would so require.” Greenwich Bay Yacht Basin Associates v. Brown, 537 A.2d 988, 991 (R.I.1988). We said in that case that the doctrine “will not be applied unless the equities clearly [balance] in favor of the parties seeking relief under [the] doctrine.” Id. It is true that in Greenwich Bay Yacht Basin Associates, the officials were acting within their authority. See id. at 989-90. I recognize that in Office of Personnel Management v. Richmond, 496 U.S. 414, 110 S.Ct. 2465, 110 L.Ed.2d 387 (1990), a majority of the Supreme Court declined to apply equitable estoppel in favor of a retired Navy employee who was deprived of disability annuity payments for a period of six months because his earnings exceeded the statutory limit. He had earned these amounts based upon erroneous assurances given to him by an employee relations specialist at the Navy Public Works Center’s Civilian Personnel Department. See id. at 417-18, 110 S.Ct. at 2468, 110 L.Ed.2d at 394-95. The specialist had even given the disabled employee a copy of a government manual published by the OPM that was out-of-date and therefore inaccurate. See id. Justice Kennedy wrote that decision, which held that the Appropriations Clause precluded any payment that did not comport with the statutory condition. See id. at 423-24, 110 S.Ct. at 2471, 110 L.Ed.2d at 398. However, I respectfully disagree with that holding, just as I disagree with the opinion of the majority in respect to restitution in this case. Justice Stevens concurred in the judgment but observed that the Appropriations Clause should not have been a bar and was indeed irrelevant to the case. See id. at 435, 110 S.Ct. at 2477, 110 L.Ed.2d at 406. Justices Marshall and Brennan, in dissent, suggested that the Court need not read the statute as inflexibly as it did. See id. at 438, 110 S.Ct. at 2479, 110 L.Ed.2d. at 408. They suggested that the appropri*49ation was made to pay disability annuities to a class, but relied upon the executive to implement the law fairly in individual cases. See id.
The majority contends that everyone is presumed to know the law and that no public official may, by interpretation, enlarge the liability of a government agency to pay benefits beyond those statutorily established. I agree that this argument has great force. Nevertheless, in this era of proliferation of administrative agencies, many of which are clothed with rulemaking as well as interpretative authority as is the board in the case at bar, such a presumption must be tempered by an equitable case-by-case evaluation of the circumstances. For example, an examination of the Internal Revenue Code of the United States, together with the regulations promulgated in interpretation thereof, would make such a conclusive presumption of knowledge of the law by all citizens to be as anachronistic as the immutable and unbending ancient laws of the Medes and the Persians.
In the case at bar, if Romano had been given the correct information, he might well not have retired from his position with DOT. Consequently, it is reasonable to infer that he was misled to his detriment. The retirement benefits were not equal to his salary. In all probability, the additional income from the town made his retirement viable. He had no reason to disregard the advice of the executive director of the agency, particularly since it was identical to that given to him by a retirement counselor. The suggestion that he should have sought a meeting with the entire board borders upon the ludicrous. As was pointed out in dicta in Heckler v. Community Health Services of Crawford County, Inc., 467 U.S. 51, 60-61, 104 S.Ct. 2218, 2224, 81 L.Ed.2d 42, 52 (1984), the Court was “hesitant * * * to say that there are no cases in which the public interest in ensuring that the Government can enforce the law free from estoppel might be outweighed by the countervailing interest of citizens in some minimum standard of decency, honor, and reliability in their dealings with their Government.”
Our own Court in Ferrelli v. Department of Employment Security, 106 R.I. 588, 261 A.2d 906 (1970), remanded a case to the Superior Court to determine factually whether a person who had collected unemployment compensation for out of state employment had been justified in so doing because of an agreement between a business agent of the union of which Fer-relli had been a member and a representative of the Department of Employment Security (agency). According to the claimant, the agreement related to the payment of contributions to the Rhode Island fund by out-of-state employers and was implemented by the action of the representative of the agency (Mr. Clarke) in providing the union with forms that its members were to give to out-of-state employers to enable them to make such contributions to the fund. See id. at 592, 261 A.2d at 909. The claimant argued that, pursuant to this agreement, he provided his out-of-state employers with the forms and that contributions were made to the agency. See id. He further argued that in the past, he had been held to be eligible for unemployment compensation benefits on the basis of contributions that had been made to the fund by his out-of-state employers. See id.
On the basis of this claim, the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, remanded the case to the Superior Court for a further remand to the board of review to make a finding “as to whether representations allegedly made by Mr. Clarke, in accordance with the extensive testimony of Mr. Kiley on that question, were in fact made.” Ferrelli, 106 R.I. at 594, 261 A.2d at 910. It is also true that upon remand the board was to consider whether these representations by Mr. Clarke were within the scope of his authority as such an employee. See id. at 595, 261 A.2d at 910.
Under the uncompromising view taken by the majority, no such remand would *50have been necessary because if a review of the statute indicated that Mr. Clarke did not act in accordance therewith, he would have had no authority to act inconsistently with its terms. Consequently, either Fer-relli contains statements by the Court that could never have been of any conclusive effect, or the Court, in accordance with its extensive elucidation of the doctrine of equitable estoppel, was of the opinion that statements by Mr. Clarke, if he was clothed with apparent authority, might well have been binding upon the Department of Employment Security. In that case, either the Supreme Court of Rhode Island was willing to test the doctrine of apparent authority, or it wrote a decision that was completely meaningless. I would not attribute any such lack of comprehension to our predecessors on this Court.
All the cases cited by the majority either relate to future application of ill-advised determinations by state officers or to situations in which no misleading information had been given by those who were in positions of authority.
I do not believe that the minimum standard of decency, honor, and reliability which Heckler suggests that persons should expect in dealings with their government is consistent with the outcome of this case. To visit upon an unoffending state employee the possible catastrophic effect of being required to repay the state thousands of dollars in benefits to which he believed that he was entitled and which were paid for many years without objection by the retirement system is unnecessarily harsh. To send this back to the Superior Court to determine what he had done with this money, including using it to cover his living expenses or to pay his preexisting debt, is unconscionable. Under the directions of the majority, a Superior Court justice would be virtually constrained to order a significant amount of restitution regardless of its effect upon Romano. If this is a standard of decency and honor, then my definition of such a standard differs so greatly from that of the majority that I find it impossible to comprehend that such a standard has been implemented under the facts of this case.
I would end this unseemly controversy by terminating Romano’s retirement benefits in the future so long as he exceeds the conditions set forth by the statute, but would reverse the trial justice’s judgment insofar as it requires repayment of benefits received up to the date of the trial justice’s decision. I would not add insult to injury by remanding this case to a justice of the Superior Court with virtual directions to force Romano into potential insolvency for having committed no evil act save that of relying upon the advice of persons whom he had every reason to believe were in a position to enunciate the policy of the board.