Employee Benefits

Plaintiffs, multiple categories of City of Chicago retirees, filed suit against Defendant, the City of Chicago, to retain benefits that the City eliminated. Plaintiffs argued, in part, that settlement agreements they previously reached with Defendant that included health care coverage granted them lifetime coverage under the Illinois Constitution’s pension protection clause. Court properly granted Defendant’s motion to dismiss this claim, because Plaintiffs were not entitled to lifetime coverage. When the settlement agreements expired, the benefits granted therein also expired. The expiration date was embedded in the benefit itself, and the benefit did not endure beyond the expiration date by application of the pension protection clause. Many of the plaintiffs were, however, entitled to lifetime health coverage per their fixed-rate subsidies which could not be diminished or impaired.

Court reversed Board of Trustees of Police Pension Fund's award of a line-of-duty disability pension to Plaintiff. Board of Trustees of Police Pension Fund abused its discretion in denying Village's petition to intervene. For Pension Board to reach issue of collateral estoppel, Village would need to have been made a party to proceeding as it was the only party with an interest in raising the defense. As the discreet question of whether Plaintiff had been injured during arrest for domestic violence incident had already been answered and fully litigated in front of Workers' Compensation Commission. Thus, that litigation precluded redetermination of whether Plaintiff was injured. (GORDON and LAMPKIN, concurring.)

City and Board of Trustees of Police Pension Fund entered into settlement agreement, whereby City agreed to pay Police Pension Fund $551,079 in back property taxes City had collected but failed to remit. Court properly found it had jurisdiction to enforce settlement agreement. Based on language in agreement, court's jurisdiction would terminate only under certain condition, and that condition had not yet occurred. Agreement contains no language limiting enforcement authority of court to only certain sections. In entering judgment against City, court was enforcing City's contractual obligations under settlement agreement. (CONNORS and SIMON, concurring.)

(Modified upon denial of rehearing 4/7/17.) Plaintiff, a city firefighter, filed application for occupational disease disability pension under Section 4-110.1 of Pension Code. City Pension Board granted Plaintiff's application. City denied Plaintiff's application for continuing health insurance benefits under Section 10 of Public Safety Employee Benefits Act.As Plaintiff was not awarded a line-of-duty disability pension, circuit court erred in granting Plaintiff summary judgment on count I based on his award of an occupational disease disability pension. Summary judgment was properly entered for Defendant City on Counts II and III. "Catastrophic injury" in Section 10(a) of Benefits Act means an injury resulting in award of a line-of-duty disability pension under Section 4-110 of the Pension Code. "Catastrophic injury", in section 10(a) of Benefits Act, is not synonymous with a disease resulting in the award of an occupational disease disability pension as defined by Section 4-110.1 of Pension Code. (KARMEIER, FREEMAN, GARMAN, BURKE, and THEIS, concurring; KILBRIDE, concurring in part and dissenting in part).

(Correcting court designation.) Defendants' (former employee and union) grievance arbitration, for termination of Defendant's employment with Plaintiff Village's Police Department was barred by waiver and res judicata. Defendants waived any potential right to statutory arbitration of grievance, by choosing to participate in hearing before Board of Police and Fire Commissioners, and thus Defendants acted inconsistently with their right to arbitrate. Thus, Plaintiff was entitled to summary judgment on its complaint for declaratory judgment and for stay of arbitration. Board's administrative was judicial in nature, and Board issued a decision after hearing which, for purposes of res judicata, was a final judgment on merits rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction. (KARMEIER, FREEMAN, GARMAN, BURKE, and THEIS, concurring.)