High Court to Consider S.D. Disability Case

The Supreme Court agreed to consider making it easier for the government to cut off disability pay to some former federal workers.

In a California case, the court said Monday that it will review a ruling that barred termination of a disability annuity for a National City man who was given incorrect information about benefits eligibility.

Charles Richmond, a retired Navy welder, asked a federal official in 1986 how much money he was allowed to make as a bus driver without sacrificing his disability annuity.

He was told that, if his pay for two years exceeded 80% of what his welder’s job had paid, he would lose the disability benefit. Richmond also was given an out-of-date federal manual with the same information.

Congress had amended the law in 1982 to cut off annuity payments to anyone making more than 80% of the former government job’s one-year salary.

Richmond in 1986 did some overtime work as a bus driver and earned $19,936. Eighty percent of his pay as a Navy welder that year would have been $19,016.

When the government cut off his disability annuity because he exceeded the ceiling, Richmond challenged the decision. He said he had relied on the misinformation he received from the government.

A federal appeals court here ordered the annuity restored. The appeals court said in a ruling last December that the government recklessly misled Richmond.

Justice Department lawyers, in appealing to the Supreme Court, said the government should not be prevented “from executing the laws as written by Congress because of the errors of government agents.”

The appeal also said Richmond suffered little harm. It accused him of trying “to work the system as close to the edge as possible,” seeking to keep the annuity while making as much in bus driver wages as he could.