Gutierrez

A county employee applied for and was granted non-service-connected disability retirement benefits, which he received until his death about two years later. Thereafter, the employee’s widow continued to receive monthly benefits (about 60 percent of the amount her husband had received). Two years after the employee’s death, the widow claimed that her husband’s illness and death had been service-connected, and she attempted to “convert” her survivor’s benefits so that her monthly payments would be increased. When the county refused, the widow filed a petition for a writ of mandate, which the trial court granted. We reverse.

Facts

In 1981, Sal Gutierrez was hired by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as a Deputy Marshal. In January 1991, Gutierrez submitted an “Application for Disability Retirement” to the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (LACERA) in which he requested a “Non-service-connected disability retirement.” On the application form, Gutierrez stated that he had been suffering from “progressive systemic sclerosis with severe damage to the lungs” since April 1981, and that the cause of his “scleroderma” was “unknown.” In July 1991, LACERA…