The 2011 CBA between the union representing New Haven, Connecticut, police officers and the City of New Haven expired on June 30, 2016. The City and Union were unable to negotiate a new agreement before that date. Under state law, the New Haven police officers continued to work under the terms of the expired 2011 agreement until a new CBA was ratified. A new agreement, effective from July 1, 2016, to June 30, 2022, was ratified on September 16, 2019. All plaintiffs in this case retired after June 30, 2016, with 34 retiring before the ratification of the 2016 agreement and three retiring after. The three plaintiffs who retired after ratification were Dennis O’Connell, Mary Helland, and Garry Monk.
The 2016 agreement included provisions for retroactive wage increases. Specifically, it stated that wage schedules would be increased by 2.25% effective July 1, 2016, 2% effective July 1, 2017, 2% effective July 1, 2018, and 2.25% effective July 1, 2019. The agreement also stipulated that retroactive wages would be distributed in three installments: one-third on November 14, 2019, one-third on July 1, 2020, and the final third in July 2021. However, the agreement explicitly stated that “in order to be eligible for these payments, members must be an active employee on the date of distribution.”
The City did not make retroactive wage payments to any of the plaintiffs on November 14, 2019, except for one officer, who retired on November 19, 2019, and received the first payment. The plaintiffs argued that they were entitled to retroactive wages for periods they had worked under the expired 2011 agreement, even though they had retired before the 2016 agreement was ratified. They also claimed that the retroactive wage increases should have impacted their pension benefits, sick leave, vacation payouts, and other benefits.
The trial court ruled in favor of the City, holding that the 2016 agreement unambiguously required that recipients of retroactive wages be active employees on the date of distribution. The plaintiffs appealed, arguing that the court improperly denied them retroactive wages. The Appellate Court of Connecticut affirmed the trial court’s judgment.
The Court found that the 2016 agreement was clear and unambiguous in requiring that recipients of retroactive wages be “active employees” on the date of distribution. The Court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the term “retroactive” entitled them to payments for periods they had worked before retiring. “The definition of the word retroactive, however, does not, by itself, entitle the plaintiffs to retroactive wage payments. Rather, the 2016 agreement requires that an individual be an ‘active employee’ on the date of distribution in order to receive the retroactive wage payments distributed on those dates.”
The Court further explained that the term “active employee” referred to current employment status, not retirees. “Therefore, according to the terms of the 2016 agreement, only active employees, which term does not include retirees, on the date of distribution can receive retroactive wage payments. Thirty four of the plaintiffs retired before the ratification of the 2016 agreement and were not entitled to retroactive wages under its terms.
“Helland and Monk retired after ratification but before the first distribution date, making them ineligible for payments. O’Connell, the officer who retired after the first distribution date, received the first payment but was ineligible for subsequent payments because he was no longer an active employee. Because the defendant’s actions regarding the distribution of the retroactive wage payments to the plaintiffs did not violate the terms of the 2016 agreement, we conclude that the Court properly found for the defendant on the plaintiffs’ breach of contract claim.”
The Court also rejected the plain tiffs’ arguments regarding pension benefits, noting that the parties had agreed to recalculate benefits only if the City was found liable for retroactive wages.
Lalli v. City of New Haven, 230 Conn. App. 863 (Conn. App. Ct. 2025).
This article appears in the August 2025 issue of our monthly newsletter, Public Safety Labor News.
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