By: Leedom S.B. No. 793
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
1-1 relating to disability retirement under the Employees Retirement
1-2 System of Texas.
1-3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-4 SECTION 1. Subdivision (12), Section 811.001, Government
1-5 Code, is amended to read as follows:
1-6 (12) "Occupational death or disability" means death or
1-7 disability from:
1-8 (A) an injury <or disease> that directly results
1-9 from a specific act or occurrence determinable by a definite time
1-10 and place, and directly results from an inherent risk or hazard
1-11 peculiar to a duty that arises from and in the course of state
1-12 employment; or
1-13 (B) a disease that directly results from an
1-14 inherent risk or hazard peculiar to a duty that arises from and in
1-15 the course of state employment.
1-16 SECTION 2. (a) A disability retiree of the Employees
1-17 Retirement System of Texas whose claim of an occupational
1-18 disability was denied by the retirement system before the effective
1-19 date of this Act is entitled to an administrative hearing to
1-20 determine whether the person's disability would have been
1-21 occupational under Subdivision (12), Section 811.001, Government
1-22 Code, as amended by this Act, if that definition had been in effect
1-23 at the time the disability was incurred. A request for a hearing
1-24 described by this subsection must be filed with the retirement
2-1 system before January 1, 1995, or the right is waived.
2-2 (b) The Employees Retirement System of Texas shall mail to
2-3 each disability retiree whose claim of an occupational disability
2-4 was denied by the retirement system in the two years preceding the
2-5 effective date of this Act a notice of the right to a hearing under
2-6 this section.
2-7 (c) After a hearing, if the Employees Retirement System of
2-8 Texas determines that the retiree's disability would have been
2-9 considered occupational if Subdivision (12), Section 811.001,
2-10 Government Code, as amended by this Act, had been in effect at the
2-11 time the disability was incurred, the retirement system shall
2-12 recompute the retiree's annuity as an occupational disability
2-13 retirement annuity of the same type as the annuity originally
2-14 selected by the retiree. The recomputed annuity becomes payable
2-15 beginning with the first payment that becomes due after the
2-16 redetermination is made of the nature of the disability.
2-17 (d) A person whose annuity is recomputed under this section
2-18 is considered a retiree because of occupational disability for
2-19 purposes of all programs administered by the Employees Retirement
2-20 System of Texas.
2-21 SECTION 3. The importance of this legislation and the
2-22 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-23 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-24 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-25 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
2-26 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
2-27 passage, and it is so enacted.