Minneapolis plans to bolster its defense of reductions in city pension costs by adding former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson to its legal team.
The plan was revealed Friday in a request to the City Council to waive concerns of potential conflicts that could occur because Magnuson now works for the Briggs and Morgan law firm, which represents clients in matters involving the city.
Hennepin County District Judge Janet Poston ruled mostly in the city's favor in a lawsuit contending that two closed police and fire funds overpaid pensioners by improperly adding some benefits to the compensation amount upon which pension benefits were based.
The pension funds have appealed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals in a case that is worth tens of millions of dollars to each side. Poston's rulings cut pension levels for some of the city's retired police and firefighters or their surviving spouses effective Jan. 1, and she's ordered the funds to devise plans to collect excess pension payments from those retirees going back to mid-2000.
The two funds, which were closed to newly hired cops and firefighters in 1980, have strenuously objected to Poston's rulings. The rulings allowed the city to cut its 2010 property tax increase from 11.3 percent to 7.3 percent, a $10 million savings.
The city has already used outside counsel from the Kennedy and Graven law firm for help in the case. City Attorney Susan Segal said that the city wants Magnuson for his appellate experience. The pension funds have added appellate attorneys from the Bassford Remele firm.
The pension case was briefly at the state Court of Appeals, but judges there ruled that an appeal was premature. The case hasn't been before the Minnesota Supreme Court, where Magnuson presided until June 30.
Larry Ward, president of the police pension board, said he's not surprised by the move. "The city knows when we get into appellate court [that] what they achieved might not hold up," he said.
