Court Opinion

ID: 9818150
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 05:25:38.642892+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:20.158745
License: Public Domain

GUIDRY, J.,
concurs in part and dissents in part, and assigns reasons.
|,While I agree with the majority’s finding that plaintiffs suit was not prescribed, I disagree with its conclusion the City of Slidell’s reservation of rights in the Plan Document was ineffectual as to plaintiffs claim that he had a vested right to continue indefinitely under the same terms the City Plan had at the time he. retired.
The Plan Document at the time plaintiff retired required retired city employees to meet the qualifications “as defined in City Ordinance, Section 21-21.” The ordinance was later amended to require retired employees who attain the age of 65 to apply for Medicare Coverage Parts A and B, with the provision the City would provide Medicare Advantage coverage at no cost to the retiree. - -Because the Plan Document clearly reserves to the'City the right “to terminate, suspend, discontinue or amend the Plan at any time and for any reason,” I see no impediment to the City’s decision to revise the plan’s eligibility requirements per the referenced ordinance rather than per amendment of the Plan Document. The Plan Document specifically allows the city to change the Plan as follows: “Changes in the Plan may occur in any or all parts of the Plan, including benefit coverage, deductibles, co-payments, exclusions, limitations, definitions, eligibility |2and the like.” Here, the City’s Plan Document, which all parties agree was the contract between them, specifically referenced Ordinance Section 21-21 and permitted the City to change the plan at any time. That the City utilized an amendment to the ordinance governing eligibility referenced in the Plan, rather than amend the Plan Document itself, seems to me to be of no moment. Nothing in the Plan Document precluded the City from amending the ordinance to accomplish the changes it sought to make in the Plan.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s reasoning that amendment of the ordinance providing for eligibility, *1238which ordinance was specifically referenced in the Plan Document and incorporated therein, was not a proper manner for the- City to exercise its right to revise eligibility requirements.