# Roach v. State Board of Retirement

> Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · January 7, 1954 · 331 Mass. 41

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9745418

## Case

- **Full name:** Joseph N. Roach vs. State Board of Retirement
- **Court:** Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
- **Decided:** January 7, 1954
- **Citations:** 331 Mass. 41; 116 N.E.2d 850; 1954 Mass. LEXIS 450
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Counihan
- **Judges:** Qua, Wilkins, Spalding, Williams, Counihan
- **Cited by:** 4 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/9745418

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that an employee had no vested rights to pension which were infringed by the repeal of the pension statute despite employee’s eligibility for retirement prior to repeal

## Opinion text

*45 Counihan, J.
For reasons which shall hereinafter appear I am constrained to concur in this opinion which is grounded upon Kinney v. Contributory Retirement Appeal Board, 330 Mass. 302 . When the Kinney case was decided I was unable to concur and the decision went as that of a majority of the court.
I was impelled to do that because I was of opinion that the holding in that case, “that a contributory pension or retirement system, like a noncontributory system, commonly creates no vested and immutable rights resting upon contract rather than upon legislative policy,” was not in line “with the more numerous decisions” in other jurisdictions and more especially because I believed that such a holding was not in accord with decisions in several jurisdictions with which we are usually disposed to agree. An analysis of those decisions would now be unprofitable.
I did not then believe and I do not now believe that contributory pensions should be considered upon the same basis as noncontributory pensions. To my mind there is a distinct difference in the nature and character of each.
However, a majority of the court has decided otherwise and what was said in the Kinney case has become the law of the Commonwealth. I must abide by it.
If relief is to be found from the effect of St. 1952, c. 634, which in many instances will bring about unfair, unjust and even distressful results, recourse must be had to suitable corrective legislative action.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9745418. Public record. Not legal advice.