# Commonwealth ex rel. Zimmerman v. Officers & Employees Retirement Board

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · December 29, 1983 · 503 Pa. 219

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6263103

## Case

- **Full name:** COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, ex rel. Leroy S. ZIMMERMAN, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and John A. Reilly, District Attorney of Delaware County, Pennsylvania v. OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT BOARD
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** December 29, 1983
- **Citations:** 503 Pa. 219; 469 A.2d 141; 1983 Pa. LEXIS 817
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Zappala
- **Judges:** Consideration, Files, Flaherty, Hutchinson, Larsen, McDermott, Nix, Roberts, Zappala
- **Cited by:** 23 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6263103

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that retirement provisions for public employees are deferred compensation

## Opinion text

ZAPPALA, Justice,
concurring.
While I concur with the result reached by the majority today, I feel the need to write separately to emphasize the fact that no law, regardless of how noble its purpose, may retroactively affect existing contract obligations. U.S. Const, art. 1, § 10, cl. 1.
In the instant case, Appellants’ purported argument is totally contrary to all principles of. contract law. It is unquestioned that the Appellee herein entered into a pension agreement wherein certain requirements were to be met in order to insure the payment of the pension itself. The pension, therefore, vests upon compliance of all the terms and conditions at the time in which the parties had agreed. Once a contractual obligation vests, no matter how innocuous it may appear, the same cannot be altered, amended or changed by unilateral action. There is no question that the Appellee in this case had certain vested interests in the plan itself. To at this time permit the requirements of Act 140 to be interposed retroactively *225 would destroy all the principles heretofore established under contract law. This clearly is impermissible.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6263103. Public record. Not legal advice.