Bourne v. Board of Trustees

J IM HANNAH, Justice.

This is an appeal from the trial court’s dismissal of a deceased retired police officer’s surviving son’s suit for benefits under his father’s pension where his father had no spouse at the time of his death. The applicable statute at the time of the retired police officer’s death in 1997, Ark. Code Ann. § 24-11-425 (Supp. 1997), provided that a monthly pension would be paid to a qualified survivor “during the surviving spouse’s life.” This language requiring a living spouse as a condition for payment of a survivor’s pension first appeared in the statute in 1987 when the…