Booth v. Sims

MILLER, Retired Justice,

dissenting and concurring:1

(Filed Dec. 20, 1994.)

I cannot understand why the majority fails to follow our major pension cases that have been unanimously decided over the past fifteen years. They represent the majority view elsewhere. To abandon their teaching for the nebulous concepts contained in the majority opinion does nothing but confuse our pension law and invite unnecessary litigation.

We recognized the contractual nature of public employee pension rights in our earlier case of Wagoner v. Gainer, 167 W.Va. 139, 279 S.E.2d 636 (1981). There, the Legislature had…