2023 Nevada Revised Statutes › Chapter 1A - Judicial Retirement › NRS 1A.480 - Disability retirement allowance: Eligibility; calculation of amount; beneficiaries; effective date of termination or adjustment of allowance.

1. A member of the Judicial Retirement Plan who has 5 years or more of service credit and who becomes totally unable to perform his or her current job or any comparable job for which he or she is qualified by training and experience because of injury or mental or physical illness of a permanent nature is eligible to apply for disability retirement if:
(a) Except as otherwise provided in subsection 5, the member’s employment as a justice of the Supreme Court, judge of the Court of Appeals, district judge, justice of the peace or municipal judge will be terminated because of the disability;
(b) The member is employed as a justice of the Supreme Court, a judge of the Court of Appeals, a district judge, a justice of the peace or a municipal judge at the time of application for disability retirement;
(c) The member proves that the disability renders the member unable to perform the duties of his or her present position and of any other position the member has held within the past year;
(d) The member files a notarized application for disability retirement with the System which indicates a selection of option and to which is attached a personal statement by the member of the Judicial Retirement Plan describing the disability, the duties which the member can and cannot perform, and any benefits the member is entitled to receive for disability from any other public source; and
(e) The Court Administrator if the member is a justice of the Supreme Court, a judge of the Court of Appeals or a district judge, the county if the member is a justice of the peace or the city if the member is a municipal judge, files an official statement certifying the member’s employment record, record of disability, absences that have occurred because of the disability, the effect upon the work of the member after the disability, and job functions that can and cannot be performed because of the disability.
2. Except as otherwise required as a result of NRS 1A.410, the amount of the disability retirement allowance must be calculated in the same manner as provided for service retirement calculations in NRS 1A.440, except that no reduction for the age of a member of the Judicial Retirement Plan may be made and that the allowance must be reduced by the amount of any other benefit received from any source on account of the same disability:
(a) If the benefit is provided or was purchased by the expenditure of money by a Nevada public employer; and
(b) To the extent that the total of the unmodified benefit and the other benefit would otherwise exceed the member’s average compensation.
3. A member of the Judicial Retirement Plan may apply for disability retirement even if the member is eligible for service retirement.
4. Each child of a deceased recipient of a disability retirement allowance is entitled to receive the benefits provided by NRS 1A.580 only if the decedent had not reached the age and completed the service required to be eligible for a service retirement allowance, except that these benefits must not be paid to anyone who is named as a beneficiary under one of the options to an unmodified allowance.
5. If a member of the Judicial Retirement Plan whose application for disability retirement has been:
(a) Approved dies before his or her employment is terminated, but within 60 days after the application was approved; or
(b) Mailed before his or her death, as indicated by the date of the postmark dated by the post office on the envelope in which it was mailed, dies before the Board has acted upon the application and the Board approves thereafter the application,
the beneficiary of the member is entitled to receive an allowance under the option selected rather than the benefit otherwise provided for a survivor.
6. The termination or adjustment of a disability retirement allowance resulting from the death of a recipient of an allowance pursuant to this section must not become effective until the first day of the month immediately following the death of the recipient.
7. As used in this section, "public employer" has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 286.070.
(Added to NRS by 2001 Special Session, 80; A 2005, 998; 2013, 1724)