(DOWNLOAD) "Lester W. Smith v. Jack R. Stewart Et Al." by Supreme Court of New York # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Lester W. Smith v. Jack R. Stewart Et Al.
- Author : Supreme Court of New York
- Release Date : January 08, 1974
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 65 KB
Description
The defendant board of trustees denied plaintiff credit for past service upon the ground that he, while a self-employed owner-operator in the vending machine industry since 1951, was not engaged in "covered employment" so as to entitle him to past service credits as defined under the rules and regulations of the pension fund. Plaintiff, however, in his verified complaint has alleged that "the defendants, either themselves, or through their officers, agents and employees have arbitrarily and capriciously declared the plaintiff to not be eligible for his pension benefits". He supports these allegations by his affidavit and that of the attorney for the New York State Operators Guild (vending machine company owners). The attorney avers that he is "fully familiar with all the proceedings involving the collective bargaining agreement which is the subject of this lawsuit". He states categorically that the so-called grandfather clause of the April 1, 1967 agreement, which provided for past service credit to be given "for service in the vending machine industry", was included in the collective bargaining specifically to provide for self-employed persons such as plaintiff who were both employer and employee. In essence, he states, the grandfather clause was a guild provision for the benefit of such operators. It was not a provision sought by the union. He states emphatically that the guild would never have entered into the April 1, 1967 agreement except upon the representation and statement of two of the pension funds trustees, who were also on the union negotiating team, that plaintiff was eligible for past service credit. Section 5 of article IV of the rules and regulations of the pension plan provides that the decisions of the board of trustees in the application and interpretation of the pension plan shall be binding on all parties. It is true that the board has found that, according to its interpretations of the rules of the pension fund, plaintiff was not eligible for [45 A.D.2d 853 Page 854]