High Court Takes Disability Discrimination Case

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to review an age discrimination case involving Kentucky Retirement Systems disability retirement benefits.

The court has asked that the parties in the case, Kentucky Retirement Systems et al. vs. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and any outside parties that want to comment on the case file briefs and reply briefs to do so by Dec. 28.

The Kentucky Retirement Systems, an organization that provides retirement benefits for Kentucky public employees, set up a disability retirement benefits system for employees in hazardous positions who became disabled before age 55, the official normal retirement age for Kentucky workers in dangerous jobs.

Workers who continued to hold dangerous jobs past age 55 and become disabled received only normal retirement benefits, according to a description of the program given in an opinion issued by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The amount of normal retirement benefits equaled 2.5% of the employee’s final compensation times the number of years worked.

Eligible workers who became disabled before age 55 and had fewer than 20 years of service received credit for extra “unworked years” to help increase their benefits. The number of years added had to be less than or equal to the number of years worked. The number could be enough to make it as if the employee had worked for 20 years or until age 55.