CA Workers covered by CalPERS and CERL

Surprisingly, employers are often unwilling to make accommodations for recovery from a disability. Instead, they urge you or force the employee into early retirement. In many cases, employees who choose to file for disability retirement benefits meet with resistance from their employer. The narrow focus of our firm allows us to provide aggressive and confident representation of all public workers covered by the two statewide retirement systems, including CalPERS (California Public Employee Retirement System) and CERL, (1937 County Employees Retirement Law) This includes employees of the Orange County Transit Authority as well. We represent employees who work in both sworn positions,(sheriffs deputies, firefighters and other public safety personnel) and non-sworn positions,(clerical, construction, maintenance, administration, etc.) in all of the following 20 California counties covered under CERL.

Whether or not the disability is service related, many city, county or state public safety workers encounter opposition when filing for disability retirement benefits under the California CalPERS law.

We represent all public safety workers covered by CalPERS, including police officers and other peace officers and sworn law enforcement personnel; firefighters and other sworn rescue workers; prison guards and other swon correction officers. A California CalPERS attorney can protect your rights and preserve one of your largest assets if you have become disabled and cannot return to the same job you had.

It is important to involve an attorney early in the process if you are considering retiring on your doctor’s recommendation, or if your employer is forcing you to retire. The success rate for appealing a denied claim is much lower than for initial claims that are properly prepared and carefully presented to CalPERS.

The outcome of your claim also depends on whether you are employed by a state agency, or by a city or local agency. A state board determines state employees’ cases, while decisions on retirement disability for city and local employees are made by the local agency and results can vary greatly. Our firm is familiar with hundreds of public agencies throughout California.

Your CalPERS disability pension benefits are typically worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps a million dollars or more, over a lifetime. Call us today to assert your rights and protect your pension.

If you have developed a disability – job related or not – which prevents you from returning to your civil service job, you need an experienced CalPERS attorney to protect your rights.

Our firm represents all state employees whose disability benefits are covered under the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, including not only CalPERS public safety sworn personnel, but non-safety “miscellaneous” workers as well. Our practice is devoted to ALL CalPERS employees statewide, who encounter difficulty with disability retirement claims. Many employees we represent are being forced to take early retirement because a disability prevents them from returning to the same job. 

Many of our clients would like to return to work, but find their employers unwilling to make reasonable accommodations. Other clients make the choice to retire after consulting their physician, but encounter resistance from the state or local agency they work for. 

We represent all non-sworn public employees, including clerical workers, administrators, laborers, non-teaching school staff, engineers, and members of the University of California Employees’ Retirement System. We can assist clients in most employee groups including the judges’ employee retirement system. Many of our clients are clerks who have developed a repetitive stress injury on the job, but we assist ALL CalPERS employees whether or not their disability is service related (industrial disability). 

The retirement system benefit for non-safety (non-sworn) employees covered by CalPERS may be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime and the decision of when and how to file for disability retirement is critical to protect your rights. You need to be represented by a competent CalPERS disability retirement lawyer. Put your trust in our experienced professionals that specialize in public employee disability pension cases.