The state Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday from a former Columbia firefighter who is seeking 29 years of back payment for health insurance premiums he said the city refused him since he was hurt on the job.
Depending on how the justices rule in the coming weeks, the case might have implications for other retirees, said Don Jonas, the attorney for ex-firefighter Robert L. Knight.
Allen Nickles, hired by the city to argue the case, said he sees no wider implications in Knight's case.
Knight, now 62, also asked the high court to find the city in contempt for refusing benefits that Knight argues a retired Supreme Court chief justice ordered in 1976 when he presided over the case and dismissed the city's arguments.
The amount of money owed, if any, has not been calculated.
The request from Knight was met Wednesday with skepticism by most of the five Supreme Court justices.
"I don't understand how you can sit on your rights all these years and then ... seek some windfall," Chief Justice Jean Toal said to Jonas, a Lexington lawyer.
"I, too, am concerned about the damages you're seeking," added Justice Kaye Hearn.
The justices pointed out that Knight, who was 45 at the time of his back injury, received health insurance coverage from his wife's employer and that he never specifically requested health insurance benefits as a pension benefit. At the time of his injury, Columbia firefighters were covered under the now-defunct Firemen's Retirement and Pension Fund.
One of the issues in the case is whether assertions made at the time in the city's employee handbook amounted to a promise to Knight and other workers for a wide range of benefits.
Nickles told the court that Knight is seeking to rewrite what he is entitled to receive.
"Does he expect that when he doesn't exercise his own self-interest ... that someone else is to do it for him?" Nickles said. "This is extraordinary relief that is being sought in this case."
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
