Contact Zimberlin Law if you have been denied Connecticut State Employee Disability Retirement benefits.
Connecticut State Employee Disability Retirement
The Connecticut state retirement summary plan description and C.G.S § 5-192p(b) provide the definition of disability.
Definition of Disability
At first, disabled means you are permanently unable to perform the duties of your job. After you have received disability benefits for 24 months, you are considered disabled only if you are totally unable to work at any suitable and comparable job. Your disability may be service-connected or non-service connected.
Time Periods Filing Your Claim
The time period for filing an application for disability retirement benefits or petition for service-connected disability retirement shall begin on the day after the applicant’s last day of paid employment by the State of Connecticut and shall end at close of business on the date that is twenty-four months after the applicant’s last day of paid employment. Regs. Conn. State Agencies § 5-155a-2(d).
If you miss that two-year filing window, The Commission, in its sole discretion and after hearing held by it, may allow equitable tolling of any of the time periods set out in this regulation and thus extend the time period for filing a claim. In order to equitably toll all or a portion of said time period, a petitioner shall show that extraordinary circumstances prevented him or her from filing his or her petition within the specified time period. Regs. Conn. State Agencies § 5-155a-2(i).
http://www.osc.ct.gov/rbsd/meetings/minutes.html
Overpayment
If the Retirement Commission has overpaid you in terms of back benefits, they will recoup the amount of the overpayment. In that case, your sole statutory remedy is to file a request for a waiver of overpayment.
C.G.S § 5-156c (b) If a member or beneficiary has been overpaid through no fault of his own, and he could not reasonably have been expected to detect the error, the Retirement Commission may waive any repayment which it believes would cause hardship.
This is a tough burden to prove. Contact us, if the Retirement Commission is re-determining eligibility or requesting you pay back past benefits.