By:  Leedom                                             S.B. No. 91
                                 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
    2-1  described by this subsection must be filed with the retirement
    2-2  system before January 1, 1997, or the right is waived.
    2-3        (b)  The Employees Retirement System of Texas shall mail to
    2-4  each disability retiree whose claim of an occupational disability
    2-5  was denied by the retirement system in the two years preceding the
    2-6  effective date of this Act a notice of the right to a hearing under
    2-7  this section.
    2-8        (c)  After a hearing, if the Employees Retirement System of
    2-9  Texas determines that the retiree's disability would have been
   2-10  considered occupational if Subdivision (12), Section 811.001,
   2-11  Government Code, as amended by this Act,  had been in effect at the
   2-12  time the disability was incurred, the retirement system shall
   2-13  recompute the retiree's annuity as an occupational disability
   2-14  retirement annuity of the same type as the annuity originally
   2-15  selected by the retiree.  The recomputed annuity becomes payable
   2-16  beginning with the first payment that becomes due after the
   2-17  redetermination is made of the nature of the disability.
   2-18        (d)  A person whose annuity is recomputed under this section
   2-19  is considered a retiree because of occupational disability for
   2-20  purposes of all programs administered by the Employees Retirement
   2-21  System of Texas.
   2-22        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-23  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-24  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-25  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    3-1  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    3-2  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    3-3  passage, and it is so enacted.