Worcester Regional Retirement Board v. Contributory Retirement Appeal Board, et al. (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-147-17)

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.  If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us   17-P-66                                         Appeals Court   WORCESTER REGIONAL RETIREMENT BOARD  vs.  CONTRIBUTORY RETIREMENT APPEAL BOARD & others.[1]     No. 17-P-66.   Worcester.     October 11, 2017. – November 29, 2017.   Present:  Milkey, Massing, & Ditkoff, JJ.     Contributory Retirement Appeal Board.  County, Retirement board. Municipal Corporations, Retirement board, Pensions.  Public Employment, Retirement, Retirement benefits.  Retirement.  Pension.     Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on September 15, 2015.   The case was heard by Shannon Frison, J., on motions for judgment on the pleadings.     Michael Sacco for the plaintiff. Thomas F. Gibson for Middlesex County Retirement Board.     MASSING, J.  The Worcester Regional Retirement Board (WRRB) appeals from a judgment of the Superior Court, which affirmed a decision of the Contributory Retirement Appeal Board (CRAB) requiring the WRRB to permit a former member to purchase nine additional months of creditable service.[2]  At issue is whether the WRRB is responsible for not having enrolled the employee, Brian Pierce, as of the day he became eligible for membership, or whether Pierce had an affirmative obligation to ensure that he had been enrolled as of his start date.  CRAB determined that the responsibility lay with the WRRB, not the employee; that the retirement system records should be corrected to reflect Pierce’s nine months of uncredited membership; and that Pierce should be permitted to buy back the time of which he had erroneously been deprived.  Discerning no legal error or abuse of discretion on CRAB’s part, we affirm. Background.  Pierce began permanent, full-time employment as a third-class lineman for the Princeton Municipal Light Department, which is a member unit of the Worcester Regional Retirement System (WRRS), on December 6, 1982.  On October 24, 1983, Pierce completed a new entrant enrollment form “[i]n order that [he] may be properly enrolled” in the WRRS.[3]  The WRRB stamped the form as received on November 18, 1983.  The form correctly indicated that Pierce’s full-time permanent employment had begun on December 6, 1982.  The WRRB enrolled Pierce as a member as of September 1, 1983, crediting him with service prior to its receipt of his enrollment form, but not for the first nine months of his employment starting on December 6, 1982. Pierce’s service with the town of Princeton ended on May 1, 1986, when he took a similar position with the Middleborough Light Department. […]

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