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Retirement Issues For State, County and Municipal Employees

If a state, county or municipal employee retires on "years of service" it will have no effect on their right to receive benefits unless the claim is being made by a public safety employee for heart disease or, in the case of firefighters, lung disease or cancer.

If, however, the state, county or municipal employee receives a service connected disability retirement, it may have a significant impact on their right to future workers' compensation benefits. The basic principal is that this class of employees is not supposed to be able to double recover for a condition from the Workers' Compensation system and the disability retirement system. However, as is true in many areas of workers' compensation law, there are sometimes ways around this legal hurdle. The interpretation of this area of law has spawned numerous Court of Appeals opinions and will continue to do so. The basic principles are as follows:

Any benefits due to you for a period prior to the date you receive disability retirement, no matter when they are paid, are payable to you in full. This means that it is vitally important to coordinate your claims for permanent disability, temporary total disability and vocational benefits since a mistake can cost you several thousand dollars;

If you are a part of the state pension system, in certain occupations, you receive all of your workers' compensation benefits, but your disability retirement is reduced to the extent you receive workers' compensation;

All other State, County and Municipal employees will only receive monetary benefits for periods after they are on disability retirement to the extent they are more than the service connected disability retirement benefit;

Medical and vocational training and schooling benefits are not effected by disability retirement;

Public safety employees' heart and lung claims are not affected to the same degree as other injuries. The benefits payable for these claims are only reduced to the extent that the combination of any retirement benefits (not just disability retirement) do not exceed the average weekly wage of the employee at the time of the injury. Once again, proper determination of average weekly can have a large affect on the amount of benefits payable to you.

It is important to remember that each case carries with it its own unique set of facts that provide an avenue for increased benefits or a risk of less. Never try to negotiate these waters without the assistance of an attorney knowledgeable in these areas.

Employees that receive non-service connected disability, otherwise known as ordinary disability, are in a vast gray area. The interplay between this type of benefit and worker's compensation is sure to result in much future litigation. It is our position that if the non-service connected disability retirement is granted for a problem that is not compensated for in the Worker's Compensation Claim (retirement due to a back injury and the compensation claim is for a knee) then there should be no effect (with the exception of heart lung claims).

It is also important to remember that a decision by any disability retirement system that a medical problem is related to the job has no effect on a Commission decision involving the same issue. Usually, the same is true in reverse. However, some Counties have contractually agreed that if a claim is covered under Workers' Compensation law then it will also be found to be service connected under their disability retirement law.