Court Opinion

ID: 9448820
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:45:24.76206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:33.615296
License: Public Domain

BURGER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The majority holds that a retirement pension which vested on appellant’s retirement in 1952 is subject to cancellation unilaterally by the employer for which appellant had worked for nearly 20 years. To reach this result the majority opinion construes the contract most strictly against the employee when the law requires we construe it strictly against the *674employer who seeks to exact the forfeiture.
In 1952 in response to appellant’s application for retirement the union president advised him ‘you have reached the age that grants you a vested interest in the Employees’ Pension Plan” under which he would thereafter receive for life a monthly pension of $108.71. The majority holding emphasizes the pension was a voluntary one requiring no contribution from Neuffer. The majority cites no authority to support making a distinction between contributory and non-contributory pension plans. Those courts which have had occasion to pass on the question recognize no distinction. We therefore break new ground and go outside the established rule to deprive appellant of the fruits of his long years of work.
A pension is simply a form of compensation deferred until retirement, Hamilton v. Wilson, 172 Pa.Super. 437, 443, 94 A.2d 116, 119 (1953), and is not merely an employer’s gratuity unsupported by consideration, as it was once regarded. See Annot. 42 A.L.R.2d 461.
The majority holding does not challenge the proposition that the employer’s plan was an offer to its employees of a unilateral contract which the employee could accept by fully and faithfully discharging his duties as an employee so long as that status existed.1 As a form of deferred compensation, earned before but paid after retirement, the consideration of the employee becomes fully executed and of necessity must be fully executed by or at the time of retirement. When the employee tenders full performance by completing whatever years of service are required, the employee’s part of the bargain is fully executed and his rights become absolute and vested.2 At that point the employer has received all the consideration he asked for and all he is entitled to. It should take the clearest and most unequivocal expression of intent to support a conclusion divesting these vested rights.
“Performance constitutes acceptance of the offer, and after performance it cannot be revoked, so as to deprive a person who has acted on the faith thereof of compensation.” Zwolanek v. Baker Mfg. Co., 150 Wis. 517, 137 N.W. 769, 772 (1912).
The consequence of the strict construction which the majority applies against appellant not only strains the language of the pension plan on which they rely but runs counter to the policy of the law in its historic aversion to forfeitures. The forfeiture clause here is construed by the majority to apply with the same force to a former employee who has been in retirement receiving a pension since 1952 as to an employee who has not yet qualified by performance.
While it is subsidiary to the main point on which I dissent, I suggest there is a very great difference in terms of the interests of the union between the “de-viationism” or “dual unionism” of an employee on the inside of the staff, identified with the union organization, and the same activity on the part of a former employee after he has retired. Moreover the consequences of this harsh forfeiture are quite different on an employee who, presumably at least, can secure other employment and develop other pension benefits elsewhere. To apply it to a pensioner after he has retired and gone beyond his best earning years is quite another story. I can scarcely be-*675Heve these factors are irrelevant when we deal with legal policy, for the law relating to forfeitures is essentially a policy matter in which equitable considerations have the dominant role.
As I read the forfeiture clause it- sets forth a valid condition which Neuffer was required to meet before he would become entitled to pension benefits, i. e., completion of the required service period with no violation of Section 6. These forfeiture provisions related to conditions precedent to retirement eligibility; a violation would presumably lead to discharge and the union, understandably, ruled out any claim by a discharged employee for any part of the pension fund. Nothing in the plan suggests the contrary and to me it would require the most explicit terms to forfeit the valuable vested rights of a pensioner earned in a lifetime of work.
The employer here had the heavy burden of showing that the contract forfeiture clause explicitly and plainly applies to retired former employees. See, e. g., Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore R. R. v. Howard, 13 How. 331, 366, 54 U.S. 307, 331. Failing even to point to any language save the word “participant” the court rescues the employer by reversing the controlling standards of law and construing the contract strictly against the employee.
The majority labels as “plainly untenable” Neuffer’s contention that the term “participant” in the forfeiture clause means employee — rather than former employees in a retired status. Neuf-fer was a “participant” when he was an employee and before his rights vested but after vesting he was primarily a beneficiary. Far from being an untenable contention it is a valid one which cannot be met by such a convenient “brush off” as the court gives it. The contract was the employer’s instrument and must be construed most strictly against it. This should be added to the basic rule that forfeitures are to be avoided if there is a reasonable construction of the contract which can avoid it. See, e. g., Aetna Ins. Co. of Hartford, Conn. v. Jeremiah, 187 F.2d 95 (10th Cir. 1951); Tuthill v. Wilsey, 182 F.2d 1006 (7th Cir. 1950); Galvin v. Southern Hotel Corp., 154 F.2d 970 (4th Cir. 1946); Meers v. Tommy’s Men’s Store, Inc., 230 Ark. 49, 320 S.W.2d 770 (1959). The reasonable — and indeed the correct— interpretation of this forfeiture clause is that “participants” are the employees to whom the pension plan is held out as an inducement for continued service and that the forfeiture clause does not apply to a former employee who has served his 20 years and accepted retirement or pension.
From the union point of view Neuffer has, of course, committed the highest crime in the catalog of offenses — that of aiding a rival union. The agreed statement of facts, which I assume indulges in no overstatement, recalls that the ap-pellee union was expelled “from the AFL-CIO on charges of corruption.” Neuffer’s offense, for which forfeiture of his pension was exacted, was giving insignificant aid and sympathy to the AFL-CIO leadership who sought to rid the bakery workers of their corrupt leaders. All this occurred after his pension rights became vested and after he ceased to be an employee.
The majority relies on Hurd v. Illinois Bell Tel. Co., 234 F.2d 942 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 352 U.S. 918, 77 S.Ct. 216, 1 L.Ed.2d 124 (1956), but that case is not in point since it involved not a forfeiture but the construing of a contract formula for measuring the amount of pension. That pension plan, in “anticipation of public pensions * * * to aged persons,” provided that the amount of the employer’s sponsored pension would be reduced to the extent of one-half of any amount received by the pensioner under the Social Security Act.
The facts also distinguish the instant case from Hughes v. Encyclopedia Brit-tanica, where the employee’s consideration was executory and no rights had vested as had Neuffer’s. A reading of the two cases relied upon by the majority thus suggests that neither one is in point and neither supports the result reached. *676Nor is Masden v. Travelers Ins. Co., 52 F.2d 75 (8th Cir. 1931) applicable. Renewal commissions on renewal premiums for insurance policies are based on continued performance of duties, i. e., “servicing” the policyholder. The right to renewal commissions was not a vested right for which all consideration had been fully performed.
The majority reaches its result by ignoring the controlling rules of law and equity relating to forfeitures and substituting a new standard of its own making, i. e., that of “reasonableness,” as the criterion. Not a single case or other authority is cited to support “reasonableness” as the controlling factor. The law is simply that forfeiture clauses are always strictly and narrowly construed and forfeiture of a right is avoided whenever a court can discern a rational basis for that result. Here we strain to accomplish a result the law is said to “abhor.” “Reasonableness” is not the issue. Neuffer is not concerned with whether the forfeiture clause is reasonable or unreasonable “on its face” but rather (1) whether it applies to him as a pensioner, and (2) whether it is a forfeiture of a kind the law will enforce absent clear and unambiguous language showing that the contract was plainly intended to control the conduct of retired pensioners as well as present employees.3
It seems to me extraordinary that this court should select such a case as this 4 to ignore the long standing equity rule that a forfeiture is to be construed most strictly against the party asserting it. The majority instead of “abhorring” this drastic forfeiture as repugnant has gone out of its way to embrace it.
I am unwilling to endorse the employer’s brutal treatment of a pensioner who served it for most of his mature life. We open ourselves to the charge that judicial concern for individual rights in this jurisdiction is confined arbitrarily and capriciously to criminal cases.

. See H. S. Kerbaugh, Inc. v. Gray, 212 F. 716 (2d Cir. 1914); Psutka v. Michigan Alkali Co., 274 Mich. 318, 264 N.W. 385 (1936); Wilson v. Rudolph Wurlitzer Co., 48 Ohio App. 450, 194 N.E. 441 (1934) ; Mabley & Carew Co. v. Borden, 129 Ohio St. 375, 195 N.E. 697 (1935); Schofield v. Zion’s Co-op. Merc. Institution, 85 Utah 281, 39 P.2d 342, 96 A.L.R. 1083 (1934).

. Cantor v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., 171 Ohio St. 405, 171 N.E.2d 518 (1960); Scott v. J. F. Duthie & Co., 125 Wash. 470, 216 P. 853, 28 A.L.R. 328 (1923); Zwolanek v. Baker Mfg. Co., 150 Wis. 517, 137 N.W. 769, 44 L.R.A.,N.S., 1214 (1912).

. This court, in another but related context, gave effect to the judicial abhorrence for forfeitures by. refusing to sustain cancellation of a police official’s pension after he qualified for retirement pension, where the cancellation was imposed because the officer refused to explain his private income sources to a Congressional Committee. This court carefully noted that the employed was seeking to penalize a “former member” of the police department for actions “after he elected to retire.” Spencer v. Bullock, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 388, 389, 216 F.2d 54, 55 (1954).

. The record discloses that two of the principal officers of the union who pressed charges against appellant leading to forfeiture of his pension were James G. Gross, President, and Peter H. Olson, International Secretary-Treasurer. These gentlemen are no strangers to our courts. Appellee’s counsel informed us that Gross had been “retired” but could not recall the amount of the pension voted to Gross by the union. Peter H. Olson recently entered a plea of guilty to one count of a 23 count indictment, that count being for conspiracy to appropriate $35,000 of appellee union’s funds. Whether he took from the pension fund from which he excluded appellant, or whether from the general treasury I am not aware. See Criminal No. 242-62, United States District Court for the District of Columbia. See also Olson v. Miller, 105 U.S.App.D.C. 54, 263 F.2d 738 (1959).