# Rockwell v. York County Retirement Board

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · December 5, 1961 · 405 Pa. 406

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9635895

## Case

- **Full name:** Rockwell v. York County Retirement Board, Appellant
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** December 5, 1961
- **Citations:** 405 Pa. 406; 175 A.2d 831; 1961 Pa. LEXIS 671
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Bell
- **Judges:** Bell, Musmanno, Jones, Cohen, Eagen, Alpern
- **Cited by:** 13 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/9635895

## Opinion text

*417 Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Chief Justice Bell:
For 4 days’ work, with no payment of any kind or amount into the retirement fund, Miss Rockwell was awarded retirement compensation of $10,265. I dissent from this unearned colossal gift which I believe is morally, legally and constitutionally unjustifiable: Article IX, §9; see also: Article III, §11, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania.
Miss Rockwell at the time of her death on January 8, 1960, was receiving, and her estate now receives, so-called retirement compensation from the County Commissioners of Fayette County, in which County she had worked prior to 1947 as a Court stenographer. Her executrix now seeks an additional retirement compensation from the County Commissioners of York County.
Miss Rockwell had been employed and paid in full for her services as a Court stenographer of York County since 1947. The County Commissioners of York County adopted a retirement system for employees of York County, effective January 4, 1960.
Miss Rockwell did not pay nor did the County deduct or pay in her behalf her proportionate contribution to the Retirement Fund on account of the salary which she earned for four (4) days from January 4 to January 8,1960. This payment would have amounted to five dollars and sixty-one cents ($5.61). After her death her executrix tendered $5.61 to the Retirement Board; the Board refused the tender; the lower Court sustained her claim and awarded her $10,265.
This case is an extension of a theory — which, at best, is a strained theory — beyond anything heretofore allowed. Only by a wild stretch of the imagination could this $10,265 be considered realistically, validly and constitutionally, “deferred or adjusted compensation”. The purpose of retirement pay is not the bestowal of a gift or gratuity or additional compensa *418 tion, at the expense of the. taxpayers, for past services * —these would undoubtedly be unconstitutional.
Article IX, §7, of the Constitution provides: “The General Assembly shall not authorize any county . . . to . . . appropriate money for . . . any . . . individual.” Article III, §11, of the Constitution clearly expresses the public policy of Pennsylvania when it provides: “No bill shall be passed giving any extra compensation to any public officer, servant, employe . . . after services shall have been rendered . . . .”
If the language of the Fourth Class County Retirement Law of 1941 — York is a Fourth Class County— permits a gift or a payment such as is claimed in the instant case, irrespective of what it is called, I would hold (a) that provision to be so unreasonable, and so unjustifiable to the taxpayers, and so prejudicial to the fund and its other members, and so devoid of consideration, as to amount to nothing more than a “gratuity” for services after they have been rendered, and (b) that for these reasons it is unconstitutional: Constitution of Pennsylvania, supra; see also: Mohler's Estate, 343 Pa. 299, 303 , 22 A. 2d 680 ; Commonwealth ex rel. McCreary v. Major, 343 Pa. 355, 360 , 22 A. 2d 686 ; Mamlin v. Genoe, 340 Pa. 320, 325 , 17 A. 2d 407 ; Schmidt v. Allegheny County Retirement Board, 394 Pa. 105, 108 , 145 A. 2d 692 ; Jameson v. Pittsburgh, 381 Pa., supra.
In Jameson v. Pittsburgh, 381 Pa. 366 , 113 A. 2d 454 , this Court declared the Act - of August 21, 1953, P. L. 1255 — which authorized the pension board to establish a program whereby any beneficiary under the pension fund, upon the payment of $200, shall be entitled to receive from the fund certain additional payments — ■ was void as to a beneficiary who was retired at the time of the enactment of the statute, as a violation of Article III, §11 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9635895. Public record. Not legal advice.