Marzec

These consolidated appeals concern the calculation of retirement benefits under the Public Employees’ Retirement Law (PERL), Government Code section 20000 et seq. Plaintiffs are former police officers and firefighters employed by local public agencies that provide employee retirement benefits through California’s Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS). In order to enhance their service retirement benefits, plaintiffs purchased additional years of service credit through one of several optional programs offered by CalPERS. Subsequently, each plaintiff was disabled on the job and took an industrial disability retirement before reaching service retirement age. As a result, CalPERS pays each plaintiff a monthly disability retirement allowance of 50 percent of his or her final compensation. CalPERS does not, however, pay plaintiffs any additional allowance as a result of their purchase of additional years of service credit.

This appeal involves two putative class actions in which plaintiffs contend that their purchase of additional service credit entitled them to enhanced retirement benefits under the PERL. They alleged CalPERS’s failure to pay such enhanced benefits…