Court Opinion

ID: 9543047
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:41:39.200756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:35.633974
License: Public Domain

PRATT, Chief Justice.
I concur generally with what Mr. Justice LATIMER states in his opinion but I believe that we can decide rather definitely one or two points.
Section 75-29-15, U. C. A. 1943, which calls for prorating the funds to “annuitants” and “claimants” if they become deficient in amount, in my opinion carries no implication of legislative power to disburse the funds for the purpose of terminating the association. The section refers to “annuities” and “refunds hereinbefore specified.” (Italics added.) The italicized words refer to two specifications only: payments to retired personnel “annuities,” (Sec. 75-29-11); *572and “refunds” to claimants under Sec. 75-29-14 pertaining to the death of a member before retirement.
When Section 4757 of the Laws of 1917 — now Sec. 75-29-8, U. C. A. 1948— made the retirement provisions of the association a part of the teachers’ contract of employment, the above two contingencies were the only two that, by implication, if not expressly so stated in those contracts, became a possible liquidating limitation upon the rights that the teacher might acquire by complying with the provisions of the law pertaining to the association to the extent of a full performance of the contract relationships — that is by retirement. I find no implications in the law that reserve to any contracting party, or to the legislature, any right to disburse the funds — and in particular the permanent funds —for the purpose of dissolving the association as against the interests of those whose rights have vested by retirement.
In the light of the authority of the Briggs case, (Briggs v. Utah State Teachers Retirement Board), 105 Utah 417, 142 P. 2d 657, the Z. C. M. I. case, and the trend of authority evidenced in the A. L. R. citations leading up to and included in Talbot v. Independent School Dist., 230 Iowa 949, 299 N. W. 556, 137 A. L. R. 249, I am of the opinion that the legislative picture before us is this:
A teacher who has served the required length of time and made the required contributions under a contract providing for retirement at the end of that time, and after those contributions, and who has been retired pursuant thereto has acquired a vested right in the accumulated funds that will defeat any attempt by the legislature to terminate the relationship by a disbursement of the funds in any way contrary to the implications of the section of the code discussed above. The matter of contributions to the fund is not something merely between two contracting parties, the individual teacher and the Board of Education. All participants are interested in the contributions of each; and the resultant *573fund is not just a group of individual contributions each traceable to its source, and thus earmarked for individual refund. The funds are a unit in which the retired member has acquired an interest commensurate with the purposes of the association. That retired member cannot be deprived of that interest by legislation, the sole purposes of which appears to be a termination of the association, for a reason other than contemplated by Section 75-29-15 above, as I have interpreted that section. Particularly is this true of a situation such as the present where the power to determine the continued existence of the fund lies in the hands of members of the association who, by reason of the youth of their membership in the association, have interests antagonistic to the vested rights of the retired personnel.
In view of the fact that we do not have all interested groups before us, nor do we have evidence before us of the relationship of the individual contracting parties as between themselves, I must limit my expressions of opinion to the legislative picture I have set out above. The remedies the retired personnel may have, if, by proper legislation, members may be relieved from future participation in the association, will have to be determined upon proper issues drawn with the adversely interested parties before the court as indicated by Mr. Justice LATIMER.