- 16 -
similar reading.10 However, there is no indication that the
municipal charters' designation of time spent on disability as
"creditable service", or as eligible for service credit, was
dispositive in either prior case. Irrespective of the technical
labels, the charter provisions in both cases functioned the same
way, deeming time spent on disability as equivalent to time spent
actively working, and counting both in setting the date when a
disabled employee was treated as if he had taken service
retirement, with a corresponding adjustment to his retirement
payments. The charter provisions in the instant case are
functionally indistinguishable from the foregoing.11 The
10The Wiedmaier opinion at times refers to disability time
and active working time collectively as "creditable service", the
Detroit Charter's formal designation of the employment periods
counted for purposes of retirement benefits. Arguably, this
suggests that the Charter's formal categorization mattered in the
Court's analysis. Elsewhere, however, the opinion refers to
disability and working time collectively as "length of service"
or as "the number of years the employee * * * worked for the
organization", suggesting that the equivalence of disability and
working time did not depend upon the Charter's formal labels.
11Citing Givens v. Commissioner, 90 T.C. 1145 (1988),
petitioner argues that Oakland Charter sec. 2610(a)'s treatment
of a disability retiree "as if" he had taken service retirement
on the 25th anniversary of his hire does not mean that the
disability retirement allowance recomputed on that premise "is
determined by reference to the employee's age or length of
service" (quoting sec. 1.104-1(b), Income Tax Regs.). Givens
involved the question of whether certain payments were for job-
related injury, so that they qualified as workmen's compensation
within the meaning of sec. 104(a)(1). The amounts were paid
under a municipal workmen's compensation statute that offered as
compensation for job-related injury the same "sick leave"
benefits available to workers with non-job-related injury. (The
(continued...)
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