Court Opinion

ID: 9566353
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:37:46.004541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:19.681558
License: Public Domain

Thompson, J.,
dissenting:
Respectfully, I wish to record my disagreement with the opinion of the Court.
*207The appellants have submitted a case which evokes sympathy. I, too, would like to see the Cragun family eligible for survivor benefits. This result, however, should not be accomplished by a construction of the Public Employees’ Retirement Act which may prove detrimental to the survivors of other public employees, including school teachers, when the tragedy of death strikes. Equal application of the Act to all members of the system should be the rule of eligibility for survivor benefits unless the legislature has otherwise expressed itself. The legislature has not done so. The Act contemplates equal application and the eligibility formula is clear and easily understood.
1. Eligibility for survivor benefits is governed by NRS 286.672(1), and the issue here is the meaning to be accorded the phrase “two years of accredited contributing service.”1 It is the appellants’ contention that Mr. Cragun had completed two full teaching years and had been credited with 24 monthly payments to the retirement fund, thereby meeting the statutory eligibility requirement. On the other hand, the respondent Board contends that the word “years” as used in the statute is not to be restricted to a “school year” of nine or ten months duration, but means an ordinary year of twelve months duration measured from anniversary to anniversary date. The district court agreed with the Board.
The common meaning of the word “year,” when used without limitation such as “academic year,” is a period of twelve months from anniversary to anniversary date. State v. East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, 35 So.2d 804 (La. 1948); see generally, annot. 3 A.L.R.3rd 584 (1966). Such common meaning is to be used unless the statute suggests that some other meaning was intended. Application of Filippini, 66 Nev. 17, 24, 202 P.2d 535 (1949); Ex Parte Ming, 42 Nev. 472, 492, 181 P. 319 (1919); Ex Parte Zwissig, 42 Nev. 360, 363, 178 P. 20 (1919).
The Public Employees’ Retirement Act contains nothing to indicate that school teachers are to be treated differently than *208other public employees. There is no intimation that a year of service for a school teacher is less than 12 months for the purposes of eligibility under the Act. The term “academic year” is not used. I believe that the legislature intended equal application of the Act to all members of the retirement system insofar as “two years of accredited contributing service” is concerned. The legislature did not designate one or another group of public employees to receive special consideration in that regard.
School teachers are employed on a yearly basis, that is, for a period of twelve months from anniversary to anniversary date, and are paid monthly for their service daring the entire year. They are “in service” of the employer for that period even though not teaching during the Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter recesses, nor during the summer recess months. An employee on paid vacation remains in the service of his employer. Butler v. Bakelite Co., 160 A.2d 36 (N.J. 1960).
Indeed, the appellants implicitly have acknowledged that summer nonteaching months are “service” months in computing the precondition to eligibility of two years of service. I say this because the appellants have counted the 1971 summer nonteaching months for that purpose. To now contend that Mr. Cragun’s second year of “service” ended at the end of the spring school semester of 1972 because he had completed his teaching responsibilities, is a contradiction and points out the flaw in the appellants’ position.
This conclusion is compelled, as well, by the requirement of NRS 286.672(1) that the deceased member has had “not less than 6 months of accredited contributing service in the 7 months immediately preceding his death. . . .” If summer months are not counted as service months for a teacher’s service year, then no teacher who dies between August and the following March will be able to satisfy the requirement that he have 6 months of accredited contributing service in the 7 months immediately preceding his death. The legislature could not have intended that result.
2. The appellants’ contention that the last sentence of NRS 286.672(1) may be utilized to establish eligibility is similarly without substance. That sentence: “If the death of such member resulted from a mental or physical condition which required him to leave active service, such eligibility shall extend for eighteen months after such member left active service.”
Mr. Cragun did not leave the active service of the school district as the result of a mental or physical condition. He *209became ill two days before his teaching responsibilities were completed under his 1971-72 contract. However, he thereafter continued in the “service” of the school district until his death on July 13, 1972.
The quoted sentence contemplates the circumstance where, because of physical or mental illness, the employment is terminated. It does not apply to the case of an ill employee who continues to be employed, paid and in service of his employer.
For the reasons expressed, I would affirm the summary judgment entered below.

 NRS 286.672(1) in relevant part reads: “If a deceased member has had 2 years of accredited contributing service in the 2Vz years immediately preceding his death and not less than 6 months of accredited contributing service in the 7 months immediately preceding his death .- . . certain of his dependents shall be eligible for payments as provided in NRS 286.671 to 286.6791 inclusive. If the death of such member resulted from a mental' or physical condition which required him to leave active service, such eligibility shall extend for eighteen months after such member left active service.”