BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT & RETIREMENT BILL NO: SB 996
Gloria Negrete McLeod, Chair Hearing date: April 9, 2012
SB 996 (Senate PE&R Committee) as amended 3/26/12
FISCAL: NO
1937 ACT COUNTY EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT LAW: HEART TROUBLE
PRESUMPTION
HISTORY :
Sponsor: State Association of County Retirement Systems
Prior legislation: This is the annual housekeeping bill
for the 1937 Act County Employees Retirement
Law
SUMMARY :
Senate Bill 996 is intended to restate and clarify existing
1937 Act County Retirement Law regarding the rebuttable
presumption that heart trouble incurred by a safety member
arises from the safety member's employment.
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS :
1) Existing law :
a) establishes the 1937 Act County Employees' Retirement
Law, which covers 20 independent county retirement
systems.
b) provides a system of industrial death and disability
benefits for safety officers and firefighters who are
injured, die, or develop an illness directly related to
the performance of their duties.
c) requires that when a safety member, firefighter, or
member in active law enforcement who has been employed
for five or more years develops heart trouble, the heart
trouble will be presumed to have arisen out of, and in
the course of, the member's employment, therefore making
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the illness industrial and qualifying the member for
related industrial benefits.
d) establishes industrial causation presumptions for
cancer, blood-borne infectious diseases, and illness due
to exposure to biochemical substances for safety
officers, and states that these presumptions may be
rebutted by presenting evidence to the contrary, but
unless rebutted, the retirement board must find that the
illness was industrial.
2) This bill clarifies that in the case of heart trouble,
that presumption may also be rebutted, but absent evidence
to the contrary, the retirement board must find that the
heart trouble was industrial.
COMMENTS :
1) Argument in Support :
According to the sponsor, the appellate court ruled in
Pellerin v KCERA (2006) that Government Code Section
31720.5 creates a rebuttable presumption that a heart
condition incurred by a safety employee arose out of the
individual's employment.
Following the Pellerin decision, there was some confusion
among 1937 Act County Retirement System attorneys regarding
the ability to rebut the heart presumption with other
evidence. The purpose of the language is to clarify
existing law and make the statutory language regarding the
heart presumption consistent with other presumptions within
the 1937 Act Retirement Law.
2) SUPPORT :
State Association of County Retirement Systems (SACRS),
Sponsor
3) OPPOSITION :
None to date
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