Illinois Supreme Court Clarifies that a Firefighter’s Occupational Disease Disability Pension Does not Qualify as a “Catastrophic Injury” for PSEBA Purposes

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Illinois Supreme Court Clarifies that a Firefighter’s Occupational Disease Disability Pension Does not Qualify as a “Catastrophic Injury” for PSEBA Purposes

January 2, 2017 

On December 30, 2016, the Illinois Supreme Court gave Illinois public employers a belated “present” for the New Year in yet another decision involving the Public Safety Employee Benefits Act (“PSEBA”).  
In Bremer v. City of Rockford, 2016 IL 119889, the Court addressed whether an occupational disease disability pension awarded pursuant to Section 4-110.1 of the Illinois Pension Code qualifies as a “catastrophic injury” for PSEBA health insurance purposes. The decision involved a firefighter who had received an occupational disease disability pension from his local firefighter pension board.
 On appeal, the Supreme Court acknowledged that it has long held that a “line-of-duty disability pension” is synonymous with a “catastrophic injury,” such that a firefighter or police officer who receives such a pension also satisfies the first prong of the test for PSEBA benefits as a matter of law. That holding was recently reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in Vill. of Vernon Hills v. Heelan, 2015 IL 118170.

The Court noted, however, that the statutory requirements for an occupational disease disability pension are different from those involving a line-of-duty disability pension. Among other things, an occupational disease disability pension requires that a firefighter have at least 5 years of service before he or she can qualify for such a pension. By contrast, a line-of-duty disability pension has no such temporal service requirement (similar differences exist between police officer line-of-duty and occupational disease disability pensions).

In light of these differences, and the General Assembly’s apparent acceptance of the Supreme Court’s prior interpretations of “catastrophic injury,” the Court concluded that the legislature did not intend to equate a “catastrophic injury” with an occupational disease disability pension. In the words of the Court: “the definition of ‘catastrophic injury’ is limited to those injuries resulting in a line-of-duty disability pension.” Bremer, 2016 IL 119889, ¶ 35.

 The Supreme Court’s decision is significant for Illinois public employers whose public safety employees cannot convince local pension boards to grant them line-of-duty disability pensions. Often, firefighters and police officers seek occupational disease disability pensions as a “fallback” when they cannot prove their illnesses were caused by one or more discrete acts of duty. In light of the Supreme Court’s Bremer decision, those occupational disease disability pensions should no longer serve as the springboard for PSEBA benefits.

 In light of Bremer, Illinois public employers may wish to revisit those PSEBA benefits that have previously been awarded to public safety employees, in order to determine whether any of the benefits were based on occupational disease disability pensions. If so, there might be legal arguments in support of terminating the PSEBA benefits.

Alternatively, public employers may want to still monitor pending or future pension applications to determine the exact type of pension that a public safety employee is seeking. Legal risks exist even in those cases where the employee is seeking only an occupational disease disability pension, because some pension boards and their attorneys have been known to gratuitously “switch” the requested pension to a “line-of-duty” without the employee’s request or consent. In those cases, intervention may still be a wise strategy so that public employers can deter such “activist” decision-making.
 Please contact a Clark Baird Smith LLP attorney if you have questions about the Bremer decision’s impact on your public employer’s PSEBA legal exposure.

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