Beggs v. City of Portales

2013 NMCA 068, 4 N.M. 213
CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedApril 30, 2013
DocketDocket No. 31,475
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 2013 NMCA 068 (Beggs v. City of Portales) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Beggs v. City of Portales, 2013 NMCA 068, 4 N.M. 213 (N.M. 2013).

Opinion

OPINION

FRY, Judge.

The opinion originally filed in this case on April 2, 2013, is withdrawn, and this Opinion is filed in its place. Defendant’s motion for rehearing is denied.

Plaintiffs, retired employees of the City of Portales (the City), brought suit against the City seeking to recover damages for reduced, and eventually terminated, health insurance reimbursement payments. Plaintiffs appeal the district court’s order granting summary judgment on the basis that Plaintiffs’ claims were barred by the applicable statute of limitations. The district court concluded that Plaintiffs’ claims began to accrue in 2001 when the City stopped offering Plaintiffs health insurance coverage under the City’s group plan and stopped reimbursing Plaintiffs for seventy-five percent of their health insurance premiums. Plaintiffs argue on appeal that the statute of limitations did not begin to accrue until the City completely terminated their health insurance reimbursement payments in 2005. Alternatively, Plaintiffs argue that the City should be estopped from asserting the statute of limitations as a defense due to its representations upon which Plaintiffs relied. We affirm the district court’s ruling insofar as it relates to the City’s alleged agreements (1) to keep Plaintiffs on the City’s own health insurance plan, and (2) to reimburse Plaintiffs seventy-five percent of their health insurance premiums. We reverse to the extent that Plaintiffs claim entitlement to reimbursement amounts lower than seventy-five percent, which claim would not have begun to accrue until the City completely terminated the reimbursement payments in 2005.

BACKGROUND

This is the second appeal in this case. In Beggs v. City of Portales, 2009-NMSC-023, ¶ 22, 146 N.M. 372, 210 P.3d 798, our Supreme Court held that the district court improperly granted summary judgment to the City because there were genuine issues of material fact as to whether contractual rights existed between the City and Plaintiffs that would entitle Plaintiffs to receive reimbursement payments from the City for their health insurance premiums. Following the Supreme Court’s decision, this case was remanded to the district court, had a brief interlude in federal court, and was eventually re-filed in state district court. The City then filed a motion for partial summary judgment against the eight Plaintiffs who retired before 2002, arguing that the three-year statute of limitations under NMSA 1978, Section 37-1 - 24 (2011), barred their claims. The district court agreed and granted the City’s motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs referenced in this Opinion are the eight pre-2002 retirees whose claims were dismissed by the district court. The following are the facts relevant to the present appeal.

In October 1994, the City adopted a new personnel policy manual for the City’s employees. The portion of the manual covering retiree health care insurance, Section 629, stated:

The City of Portales shall offer employees upon their retirement the option of continuing their group health and life insurance coverage through the City’s group plan, provided they are enrolled in the group health plan at least one year prior to retirement. The cost of the insurance for the retiree shall be the same as the cost for regular employees. If the City is paying [seventy-five percent] of the premium for employees, the City shall pay [seventy-five percent] of the premium for the retiree and shall be budgeted out of the department from which the employee retires. Retirees shall be responsible for paying their portion of the premium on a monthly, timely basis, in order to avoid the lapse of their policy coverage.
Conditions of the policy coverage shall apply in accordance with the retiree’s age and circumstances on an individual basis.

Section 629 was retained in its entirety when the 1994 personnel policy was revised in 1997. Three Plaintiffs retired while the 1994 policy was still in effect. The remaining five retired after the 1997 revision. Seven of the eight Plaintiffs chose, pursuant to Section 629, to continue coverage under the City’s group plan following retirement, and the City initially paid seventy-five percent of their health insurance premiums while Plaintiffs were covered under the City’s group plan. The remaining retiree, Arly Hamner, retired August 31, 2001. While it is clear that Hamner was covered under the City’s group plan as an active employee, it appears from the record that Hamner did not continue coverage under the City’s group plan upon retirement.

On July 18, 2000, the City adopted Ordinance No. 624 in which the City opted to be included in coverage under the New Mexico Retiree Health Care Act (NMRHCA), effective January 1,2001, pursuant to NMSA 1978, Sections 10-7C-1 to -19 (1990) (as amended through 2009). The city council noted in its July 11, 2000, meeting that the cost of insuring the retirees had doubled in the past year and “ha[d] the potential to break the [C]ity.” Therefore, the City viewed opting into the New Mexico Retiree Health Care Authority’s (the Authority’s) system as an “alternative for the [C]ity to help its retirees with insurance.” Subsequently, the City adopted Portales, N.M., Res. 00-01-12 (2000) (the Resolution), which stated both that retirees would be required to enroll for insurance coverage administered by the Authority and that the City would contribute to the retirees’ premiums “at the same amount it is currently participating.”

In a letter dated November 21, 2000, the Authority notified Plaintiffs that their health insurance coverage through the City would terminate effective December 31, 2000, that Plaintiffs had the option of receiving coverage under the Authority, and that the Authority would subsidize a portion of Plaintiffs’ monthly health insurance premiums. Plaintiffs also received a letter from the city clerk stating that the City had opted into the NMRHCA and that the City “intends to pay toward premiums for those ... retirees already in the group health care plan.” All Plaintiffs who had chosen to continue coverage under the City’s group plan after retirement chose to transfer health insurance coverage to the new plan offered by the Authority.

Coverage under the Authority’s plan began on January 1, 2001, and the City began reimbursing Plaintiffs for portions of their Authority health insurance premiums. It is undisputed, however, that none of Plaintiffs received a seventy-five percent reimbursement from the City for their Authority premium billing. Instead, the City reimbursed Plaintiffs between fifty and fifty-six percent of their health insurance premiums. Despite the City’s lower reimbursement amounts, Plaintiffs continued to pay nearly the same amount for their portion of monthly premium payments due to the subsidization of the premiums by the Authority.

On May 3, 2005, the City adopted Ordinance 654, which replaced the 1997 personnel policy with a new personnel policy that omitted Section 629. At about this time, the City began discussing whether it was obligated to continue reimbursing Plaintiffs for their Authority health insurance premiums, although the City did continue to reimburse Plaintiffs after Section 629 was omitted from the new personnel policy.

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Related

State v. Quintin C.
2019 NMCA 069 (New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2019)
Beggs v. City of Portales
2013 NMCA 68 (New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2013)
State v. Osborne
808 P.2d 624 (New Mexico Supreme Court, 1991)
State v. Pierce
792 P.2d 408 (New Mexico Supreme Court, 1990)
State v. Young
178 P.2d 592 (New Mexico Supreme Court, 1947)
State v. Gallegos
129 P.2d 634 (New Mexico Supreme Court, 1942)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2013 NMCA 068, 4 N.M. 213, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beggs-v-city-of-portales-nm-2013.