AELE LAW LIBRARY OF CASE SUMMARIES:
Employment & Labor Law for Public Safety Agencies
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Survivorship
A civilian
employee of the FBI elected his wife to receive survivor benefits in the
Federal Employees Retirement System upon his death. He was married to her for
less than nine months before his death and had no children together. When she
sought the benefits, the Office of Personnel Management denied her claim. Under
5 U.S.C. 8441(1), a widow is defined as a “surviving wife” who: “was married to
[the covered decedent] for at least [nine] months immediately before his death”
or “is the mother of issue by that marriage.” Subsequently, a Merit Systems
Protection Board administrative law judge denied a request she filed for
information as to whether the nine-month requirement had previously been waived
for others and whether the nine-month requirement ad ever been sufficiently
explained to her husband. This ruling became the final decision of the Board,
and a federal appeals court affirmed it, applying rational basis scrutiny and
applicable U.S. Supreme Court precedent. It rejected an argument that the nine
months rule was unconstitutional. Becker v. Office of Personnel Management,
#16-1365, (Fed. Cir.). Surviving
family members of eight firefighters who died in 2003 were denied survivors'
benefits under the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Act, 42 U.S.C. 3796. The
firefighters had not been public safety officers within the meaning of the Act,
as they were employed by a private company that worked as an independent
contractor supplying firefighters to the state and government agencies for a
fee. Under the Act, a public safety officer is defined as "an individual
serving a public agency in an official capacity. Accordingly, no survivor
benefits were available to the families under the Act. Moore v. Dep't of
Justice, #13-8001, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 14149 (Fed. Cir.).
The male same-sex partner
of a Missouri highway patrolman killed in the line of duty challenged two state
statutes. The first provides benefits to the spouse of a state highway
patrolman killed in the line of duty, while the second statutes provides that
the word spouse in the first statute only refers to a marriage between a man
and a woman. The plaintiff was denied survivor benefits and argued that he was
denied his equal protection rights under the state Constitution on the basis of
his sexual orientation. Rejecting this claim, the Missouri Supreme Court held
that the plaintiff was not entitled to survivor benefits because he was not
married to the decedent, and that would be the case even if they had been a
heterosexual couple but unmarried. The statute concerning benefits discriminated
solely on the basis of marital status, not sexual orientation. The plaintiff
did not have standing to challenge the ban on benefits for same-sex married
couples as he was not a member of that class of persons. Glossip v. Mo. Dep't of
Transp. & Highway Patrol Employees' Ret. Sys., #SC92583, 2013 Mo. Lexis
294.
The unrelated death of a plaintiff does not prevent her
survivors from recovering damages for emotional distress caused by sexual
harassment and constructive termination. Los Angeles (County of) v. Super. Ct.
(Schonert), 1996 Cal.App. Lexis 1082, 50 Cal.App.4th 1453, 58 Cal.Rptr.2d 358.
[1997 FP 28-9]
When a California law enforcement officer causes
the death of a person, the estate cannot also recover for the decedent's
emotional injuries; the wrongful death action provides sufficient monetary
recovery. Garcia v. Super. Ct., 42 Cal.App.4th 177 (1996). {N/R}
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