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Irregular pay at an overtime rate is not Regular Compensation

Writer's picture: Daniel O'ConnorDaniel O'Connor

In O'Malley v. Contributory Retirement Appeal Board ,  Docket # 23-P-1147 (2024) the court addressed the issue of whether traffic duty pay earned by the plaintiffs should be included in the calculation of their retirement allowances as “regular compensation" under G.L. c. 32, Section 1. The plaintiffs, both public employees in Brockton, Massachusetts, argued that their traffic duty pay, which was calculated at an overtime rate, should be considered regular compensation for retirement purposes.


Both O'Malley and Lambert performed school-related duties, including irregular traffic duty hours, for which they were compensated at time and a half, akin to overtime pay. They applied for accidental disability retirement after sustaining work-related injuries, but their traffic duty payments were excluded from their retirement calculations by the Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission (PERAC), following regulations implemented in 2010.


The plaintiffs appealed, seeking to have their traffic duty payments included as part of their regular compensation for retirement. The Contributory Retirement Appeal Board (CRAB) upheld PERAC’s exclusion of these payments, reasoning that traffic duty pay was irregular, paid on an hourly basis, and more akin to overtime rather than regular salary.


The court ruled in favor of CRAB, affirming that traffic duty pay does not qualify as "regular compensation" under G.L. c. 32, § 1, as it was irregular, non-contractual, and similar to overtime. The plaintiffs' reliance on past practices where retirement contributions were deducted from traffic duty pay did not create a statutory right for such payments to be treated as regular compensation. The judgment for the defendants was affirmed.


In summary, the court concluded that traffic duty pay, being irregular and paid at an overtime rate, does not meet the definition of regular compensation for purposes of calculating retirement benefits under Massachusetts law.

 

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