CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - ACT CHANGING PENSIONS - IMPAIRING OBLIGATION OF CONTRACTS - DUE PROCESS

Authors

Bertram H. Lebeis, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

An Illinois statute provided for the compulsory retirement of teachers at the age of seventy with an annuity of $1500 a year for life, and an amendment thereto granted annuities on a sliding scale from $1000 to $1500 a year to teachers voluntarily retiring between the ages of sixty-five and seventy. These provisions were changed by an act of 1935 which abolished the provisions for voluntary retirement and .fixed compulsory retirement at the age of sixty-five, with annuities reduced to a flat rate of $500 annually. Plaintiffs, who either had retired or were eligible for retirement at the time the act of 1935 was passed, contended that their rights to annuities were vested rights of which they could not be deprived, and sought to enjoin the defendants from complying with the terms of the act. Held, that the prior act did not constitute a contract to pay a fixed amount, but merely provided for gratuities which could be altered at the will of the legislature. Dodge v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago, 302 U. S. 74, 58 S. Ct. 98 (1937).

Recommended Citation

Bertram H. Lebeis, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - ACT CHANGING PENSIONS - IMPAIRING OBLIGATION OF CONTRACTS - DUE PROCESS, 36 Mich. L. Rev. 1188 (1938).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol36/iss7/10