The spouse of a deceased police officer was entitled to resolve a dispute with the city over survivor pension benefits through arbitration, rather than a local agency appeal, because those benefits were specifically provided for in the police union’s collective bargaining agreement with the city, a unanimous Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled.
In City of Arnold v. Wage Policy Committee of the City of Arnold Police Department, the justices reversed a Commonwealth Court ruling that Pamela Cimino, the widow of an Arnold city police officer, was not entitled to arbitrate her claims against the city after its pension board decided to cut her survivor benefits in half.
