Appellant, invoking the Declaratory Judgments act of 1924 (page 312) and supplements, petitioned the Essex Circuit Court for a judicial declaration that her deceased husband, Thomas F. Donahue, who at the time of his death was an employe in the department of public works of the city of Newark, was entitled to the benefits of the Municipal Employes Retirement act of 1927 (Pamph. L., p. 365) and that by virtue thereof she, as his widow, was entitled *Page 203 to qualify for a pension thereunder. The petition, or complaint, set up certain facts which appear to have been accepted and stipulated by both sides as correct. No answer was filed; briefs were submitted to Judge William A. Smith, and he delivered a written opinion which is before us, and which we think correctly disposes of the matter.
The first employment of Donahue in connection with the city in any way, seems to have been in 1914, under the department of health. He was then thirty-eight years old. A board of health pension fund act was then in force (Pamph. L. 1913, p. 380;Cum. Supp. Comp. Stat. 1924, p. 1483), but Donahue did not join that fund. He remained in the department of health until 1933, when he was transferred to the department of public works, a city department, controlled as to pension matters by the said act of 1927, chapter
It is argued that the words "accepting any employment" in section 2 of the act of 1930, should be held applicable to *Page 204 accepting employment for the first time; and that the employment of deceased by the city had been continuous notwithstanding the shift from the board of health. But we think the act of 1930 must be read in the light of the act of 1927 which, as we have noted, specifically restricts the word "employe" to others than employes of boards of health. To put it in another way, Donahue first became a municipal employe in the statutory sense of the word, for pension purposes, in 1933, and was then barred for age, as already pointed out.
The judgment of the Circuit Court is affirmed.