A majority of the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the constitutional right to be free of excessive fines wasn’t violated in the case of a former Jersey City tax assessor whose entire pension was forfeited after he was found guilty of taking a $300 bribe prior to retirement.

In State v. Anderson, the court ruled 5-1 that defendant Bennie Anderson had committed a federal crime while a public employee and, therefore, the forfeiture of his entire state-paid pension—worth over $1 million after his nearly four decades working in the public sector—did not constitute an excessive fine under the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment and Article I, Paragraph 12 of the New Jersey Constitution.