Court Opinion

ID: 9750632
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 15:14:03.981586+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:14.494240
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Cohen :
A, an employee of the Commonwealth, retires and names B, C, and D as his beneficiaries; C and D each take their respective shares in cash but B elected to have her share remain in the State Retirement Fund in the form of an annuity as permitted. B dies while there are still unpaid accumulations due her, which undistributed payments are then paid to B’s administrator and, under the Intestate Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, are distributed to her intestate heirs.
The majority interprets §803 to apply “to ‘any person’ who receives money from the fund and is not restricted to the designated beneficiary.” But the heirs of B do not receive the money from the fund. The heirs of B receive the money from the estate of the beneficiary and hence do not come within the exception provided for in §803. Nor do the heirs of B receive “any benefit or right . . . accruing to any person” under the provisions of the retirement act. The right of B’s heirs to the moneys accrue through the intestate laws of the Commonwealth.
I dissented in Belefski Estate, 413 Pa. 365, 196 A. 2d 850 (1964), and do so here even though I disagree with the Commonwealth that that decision does not control.
I dissent.