On April 27, 2015 the Second District Appellate Court issued its Opinion in Bremer v. City of Rockford.  The Rockford Firefighters’ Pension Board awarded the plaintiff an occupational disease disability pension.  The City subsequently denied the plaintiff’s demand for the payment of his health insurance premiums pursuant to the Public Safety Employee Benefits Act (“PSEBA”).  The plaintiff sued for the City for payment of PSEBA benefits and to recoup his attorney’s fees pursuant to the Attorneys Fees in Wages Actions Act.  The trial court entered judgment in favor of the plaintiff on his PSEBSA claim and denied the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgement on the Wage Actions Act.

The City argued that the award of an occupational disease disability pension did not satisfy the “catastrophic injury” requirement for PSEBA.  The appellate court disagreed.  The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s order that the award of an occupational disease disability pension satisfied the “catastrophic injury” requirement in PSEBA.  The appellate court held that “there is no meaningful distinction between a line of duty disability based on sickness resulting from the cumulative acts of duty (section 4-110) and an occupational disease disability based on cardiomyopathy resulting from service as a firefighter (section 4-110.1).  The appellate court ultimately remanded the issue to the trial court to determine whether the occupational disease disability pension resulted from the plaintiff’s response to what he reasonably believed to be an emergency.

The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s order that the plaintiff was not entitled to an award of attorney’s fees under the Wage Actions Act.  The appellate court held that health insurance benefits under PSEBA do not qualify as “wages earned and due and owing to the terms of employment as they are not payments to an employee for services rendered.”

Justice McLaren wrote a dissent that the majority described as having a “hyperbolic tone.” Justice McLaren concurred with the majority’s opinion that health insurance benefits under PSEBA do not qualify as wages under the Wage Action Act.  However, Justice McLaren, cited to his dissent in Village of Vernon Hills v. Heelan to argue that the pension board’s award of a line of duty disability pension or an occupational disease disability pension is not irrefutable proof of a catastrophic injury for purposes of section 10(a) of PSEBA.  The Illinois Supreme Court has granted a petition for leave to appeal in the Heelan case.