Dillard, Presiding Judge. The City of Waycross appeals the trial court’s grant of partial summary judgment to a group of retired city employees, who sued the City after it terminated health-insurance benefits provided for in the City’s “Health Plan” in effect at the time of the employees’ respective retirements. The City also appeals the denial of its two motions for summary judgment.[1] In doing so, the City argues that the trial court erred in ruling for the retired employees because its actions were expressly permitted by the Health Plan and did not violate the Impairment Clause of the Georgia Constitution.[2] For the reasons set forth infra, we reverse in part, vacate in part, and remand the case with direction. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving parties,[3] the record shows that the plaintiffs are all retired city employees. And at the time of their respective retirements, the City maintained a Health Plan, in which certain retirees were allowed to participate. The Health Plan contained a provision stating, “An employee who retires from active employment on or after attainment of age 55 and with 20 or more years of service may elect to continue medical, dental, and prescription under the [Health] Plan for himself/herself and his/her eligible Dependents until the retiree reaches the age of 65.” Additionally, it is undisputed that when they retired, each plaintiff was at least 55 years old and had 20 or more years of service with the City. So, upon retirement, each plaintiff elected to continue participating in the City’s Health Plan, as they were entitled to do under the foregoing provision. But then, on September 20, 2016, the Waycross City Commission voted to bar retirees from continuing to participate in the Health Plan. Indeed, the City Commission’s Resolution No. 16-68 provides that “the Commission hereby approves the removal of retired employees from the City’s Health Insurance Plan coverage, effective January 1, 2017.” As a result, the plaintiffs are no longer receiving any benefits under the City’s Health Plan. Thereafter, the plaintiffs filed an action against the City, asserting claims of, inter alia, money damages resulting from breach of contract, promissory estoppel, and quantum meruit.[4] In their complaint, the plaintiffs contend that the City was not empowered to retroactively deprive them of vested retirement benefits and their constitutional rights have been violated. The City answered the complaint, asserting several affirmative defenses. Discovery then ensued, and on May 25, 2017, the City filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that its actions did not violate the Impairment Clause because the plaintiffs had no vested right in the Health Plan’s benefits. Indeed, according to the City, the Health Plan expressly permitted it to terminate those benefits for retirees.[5] The plaintiffs filed a response, as well as a cross-motion for partial summary judgment only as to the following question: “Is the City of Waycross liable for violating the [I]mpairment [C]lause of the Georgia Constitution by amending its Health Plan to eliminate coverage for the [p]laintiffs?” The plaintiffs clarified that they were not moving for summary judgment on their claims of promissory estoppel and quantum meruit. The City then replied to the plaintiffs’ response and motion for partial summary judgment. On June 11, 2018, the City filed a second motion for summary judgment as to the plaintiffs’ claims of promissory estoppel and quantum meruit,[6] and the plaintiffs filed a brief in opposition to that motion. Following a hearing on the parties’ motions, the trial court issued an order, granting the plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment, denying the City’s first motion for summary judgment,[7] and denying the City’s second motion for summary judgment as moot. This appeal by the City follows. Summary judgment is proper when “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.”[8] Furthermore, a de novo standard of review applies to “an appeal from a grant or denial of summary judgment, and we view the evidence, and all reasonable conclusions and inferences drawn from it, in the light most favorable to the nonmovant.”[9] Moreover, at the summary-judgment stage, “[w]e do not resolve disputed facts, reconcile the issues, weigh the evidence, or determine its credibility, as those matters must be submitted to a jury for resolution.”[10] With these guiding principles in mind, we will now address the City’s specific claims of error. 1. In two related claims, the City argues that its termination of the plaintiffs’ health-insurance benefits was authorized by the contract (i.e., the Health Plan), and that its actions did not violate the Impairment Clause of the Georgia Constitution. We agree. As the Supreme Court of Georgia has explained, the plaintiffs’ “claims of breach of . . . contract[ ] and violation of the Impairment Clause, in the context of litigation such as this, are subject to the same analysis inasmuch as allegations of violation of the Impairment Clause have historically been treated as raising breach of contract issues.”[11] And the Impairment Clause of the Georgia Constitution provides: “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, retroactive law, or laws impairing the obligation of contract or making irrevocable grant of special privileges or immunities shall be passed.”[12] As our Supreme Court noted in Withers v. Register:[13] It [is] the law of this state that a statute or ordinance establishing a retirement plan for government employees becomes a part of an employee’s contract of employment if the employee contributes at any time any amount toward the benefits he is to receive, and if the employee performs services while the law is in effect; and that the [I]mpairment [C]lause of our constitution precludes the application of an amendatory statute or ordinance in the calculation of the employee’s retirement benefits if the effect of the amendment is to reduce rather than increase the benefits payable.[14] Further, it is not necessary for an application of this rule that “the rights of the employee shall have become vested under the terms of the retirement plan while the amendment is in effect.”[15] Instead, if the employee performs services during the effective dates of the legislation, the benefits are “constitutionally vested, precluding their legislative repeal as to the employee, regardless of whether or not the employee would be able to retire on any basis under the plan.”[16] As evidenced supra, our Supreme Court’s construction of the Impairment Clause in Withers applies only to “retirement plan[s] for government employees,” which are part of the employee’s overall contract for employment.[17] And here, we question whether the City’s Health Plan is a part of the plaintiffs’ retirement plan. Indeed, in a nearly identical case—Wilson v. City of East Point[18]—decided after Withers, the Supreme Court of Georgia addressed certain life-insurance benefits that were provided to City of East Point employees at the time of their retirement, but were significantly reduced five years after the employees retired.[19] But despite the post-retirement reduction in these benefits, the Wilson Court noted that the City employees were receiving all the benefits they were entitled to under their retirement plan.[20] And in ruling for the City, our Supreme Court explained, [t]he cases cited by plaintiffs in support of their claims, e.g. Withers . . ., pertain to the constitutional vesting of retirement benefits, and are inapplicable here where the life[-]insurance benefits are provided separately and distinctly from retirement benefits, where the plaintiffs were never promised a continuation of their life insurance benefits, and where the plaintiffs were placed on notice that those benefits were subject to change.[21] So, like the life-insurance plan in Wilson, the City’s Health Plan was provided “separately and distinctly” from the plaintiffs’ retirement plan, which is not included in the record. Indeed, the plaintiffs were covered by the Health Plan even before they retired and merely elected to continue coverage after retirement, suggesting that the coverage was not solely a retirement benefit. Also, as in Wilson (and as explained more fully infra), the City’s Health Plan did not guarantee a continuation of health-insurance benefits. To the contrary, the plaintiffs were on notice that those benefits were subject to change. As a result, we fail to see a meaningful distinction between Wilson and the instant case, and thus, as in Wilson, the Impairment Clause restrictions detailed in Withers are simply inapplicable here. Regardless, even if the Health Plan could be considered a part of the plaintiffs’ retirement plans, and therefore, part of their employment contracts, the Impairment Clause was not violated because the plaintiffs never had a vested right in the health-insurance benefits at issue.[22] As previously mentioned, Section IV, paragraph 4.5 of the City’s 2016 Health Plan provides, in relevant part: [A]n Employee who retires from active employment on or after attainment of age 55 and with 20 or more years of service may elect to continue medical, dental, and prescription coverage under the [Health] Plan for himself/herself and his/her eligible Dependents until the retiree reaches the age of 65. In this case, it is undisputed that the plaintiffs met the requirements to continue medical coverage under the foregoing provision when they retired and they all elected to do so. As a result, the plaintiffs contend the City violated the Impairment Clause when it amended the Health Plan to terminate their health-insurance benefits on January 1, 2017, because that amendment served to reduce, rather than increase, the benefits payable. And to be sure, under Withers, such an amendment to a retirement plan, without more, would violate the Impairment Clause.[23] But our inquiry does not end here. As we have previously acknowledged, the Supreme Court of Georgia “had no difficulty in holding as long ago as 1954 that where a statute itself provides that it is subject to legislative change it may be amended, because no ‘vested right’ to unchanged benefits was created.”[24] And here, Section XV, paragraph 15.1 of the Health Plan provides: “The Plan Sponsor reserves the right to amend or modify all or any portion of the coverage under this Plan at any time on a prospective basis, any such action being within its complete and sole discretion.”[25] Thus, as with the provision providing continued coverage for retirees, the plaintiffs also agreed to this provision in the Health Plan at the time they entered into it. And Georgia appellate courts have repeatedly held that modification of a retirement benefit does not violate the Impairment Clause when the plain language of the same legislation or policy permits such modification.[26] So too here. The City’s Health Plan unequivocally permits future modifications of its terms, and as a result, the trial court erred in granting the plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment and denying the City’s first motion for summary judgment. The plaintiffs make several arguments to support their position that the City is constitutionally barred from removing them from the Health Plan. But significantly, none of their arguments address whether the health-insurance benefits were provided separately and distinctly from their retirement plan. And as discussed supra, applying the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Wilson, to the extent that the Health Plan is separate and distinct from their retirement plan, the Impairment Clause is inapplicable.[27] But even if it did apply, their arguments are meritless. First, the plaintiffs argue that if an employee works and retires under a certain retirement plan, those benefits become vested and cannot be eliminated after retirement. But in support of this contention, the plaintiffs rely on a single case, which is easily distinguishable because the plan at issue in that case did not involve a provision allowing for the future modification of benefits.[28] Next, the plaintiffs contend that Georgia courts have not held that a retirement benefit can be eliminated for individuals who have already retired “except where a state statute explicitly provides that a benefit cannot vest.” But we have held that when the “contract terms themselves provide for subsequent amendment, modification, or termination, no ‘vested’ right under the contract is created[;]“[29] and here, the City’s Health Plan contained such a provision. The plaintiffs repeatedly assert that this case is distinguishable from other cases involving modification clauses because the employees in those cases had not already retired. But because the Health Plan provided that it could be modified or amended “at any time,” we will not construe that provision to mean that modifications can only occur before an employee retires.[30] Furthermore, the plaintiffs provide no legal authority affirmatively holding that clauses providing for the subsequent modification of benefits are no longer valid once an employee retires. Additionally, the plaintiffs contend that adopting the City’s position would mean that “no public employee could ever earn a vested retirement benefit” because every city, county, and state policy is subject to modification. And they further argue that granting an employer the right to modify benefits prevents them from vesting, thereby rendering them an unconstitutional gratuity. But despite these arguments, we are nevertheless bound by the numerous Georgia cases allowing government employers to modify retirement benefits if, as here, the statute or policy expressly permits them to do so.[31] 2. After erroneously denying the City’s first motion for summary judgment, the trial court determined that the City’s second motion for summary judgment, which addressed the plaintiffs’ claims of promissory estoppel and quantum meruit, was moot. Those claims, however, have never been resolved by the trial court and were not at issue in this appeal. Under such circumstances, the City’s second motion for summary judgment is not moot. As a result, we vacate the trial court’s order denying the City’s second motion for summary judgment as moot and remand the case for the court to address that motion on the merits. For all these reasons, we reverse the trial court’s grant of partial summary judgment to the plaintiffs and its denial of the City’s first motion for summary judgment. We also vacate the trial court’s order denying the City’s second motion for summary judgment as moot, and remand the case for the court to consider that motion on the merits. Judgment reversed in part, vacated in part, and case remanded with direction. Rickman and Brown, JJ., concur.
