Matus

An administrative law judge ruled that defendant California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) had underpaid retirement benefits to Clarence Alexander and his widow by more than $3 million (plus interest). CalPERS rejected this proposed decision and opted to decide the case itself upon the record, including the transcript. Plaintiffs, who are pursuing the claim on behalf of Alexander’s heirs, subsequently filed a petition for writ of mandate, asserting that the proposed decision must be deemed adopted because CalPERS failed to order a transcript within 100 days of rejecting the proposed decision and did not timely issue its own decision. The trial court agreed that CalPERS had violated the timelines established by the Administrative Procedure Act (Gov. Code, § 11400 et seq.), specifically, Government Code section 11517, and issued the requested relief. (Unspecified section references that follow are to the Government Code.)

On appeal, CalPERS asserts that the trial court misconstrued the timelines and that its actions were timely. We affirm the judgment.

Section 11517

In order to set the context for this appeal, we outline the relevant provisions of section…