Abbot

In these five eases, consolidated for trial, plaintiffs appeal from adverse judgments in their actions seeking to enforce pension payments upon a fluctuating basis (i.e., based upon salaries currently being paid from time to time) rather than in fixed amounts determined at the time the pension is granted. Defendants are the city of Los Angeles and its board of pension commissioners. We have concluded that charter amendments by which fixed payment pensions were substituted for fluctuating may not properly be applied to plaintiffs, and that the judgments should be reversed.

The 673 plaintiffs in the Abney and the 30 plaintiffs in the Behrns cases were appointed as members of the fire or the police department of defendant city prior to July 1, 1925, and retired therefrom subsequent to that date upon pensions which have been paid in fixed amounts. In the Abbott, Adams and Mason eases the 79 plaintiffs are widows who were granted fixed-payment pensions upon the deaths of their respective husbands who had been employed in the fire or police department prior to, and died after, January 17, 1927. (In the "Abbott case the husbands of the 17 plaintiffs, with one exception, had retired…