Opinion ID: 2691379
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Board’s Finding

Text: {¶ 32} Cydrus claims that the retirement board also abused its discretion by failing to consider the new additional medical evidence she submitted in support of her appeal of the board’s termination of her disability-retirement benefits. She asserts that the retirement board ignored the report of her treating physician, Dr. Sylvester. Ohio Adm.Code 145-2-23(B)(3) requires that a recipient of disability-retirement benefits whose benefits have been terminated support an appeal of the decision with “additional objective medical evidence,” Ohio Adm.Code 145-2-23(B)(3)(b), which is defined as “current medical evidence documented by a licensed physician specially trained in the field of medicine covering the illness or injury for which the disability is claimed [that] has not been considered previously by the retirement board.” Ohio Adm.Code 145-2-23(B)(3)(d). {¶ 33} The board, however, specified that the decision was “[b]ased upon all the medical information and recommendations.” It was free to discount Dr. Sylvester’s report because the imaging results she cited were not provided to the board until after the deadline for submission under Ohio Adm.Code 145-2- 11 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 23(B)(3) had expired. As Dr. Sylvester noted, the neurosurgeon who issued the new imaging report concluded that Cydrus’s medical condition was stable. {¶ 34} Under these circumstances, the retirement board did not abuse its discretion by determining that Cydrus had not submitted sufficient objective evidence of permanent disability entitling her to the continuation of her disabilityretirement benefits. She did not submit sufficient evidence to overcome the presumption that the retirement board acted properly by considering and rejecting Dr. Sylvester’s recommendation. See State ex rel. Toledo Blade Co. v. Seneca Cty. Bd. of Commrs., 120 Ohio St.3d 372, 2008-Ohio-6253, 899 N.E.2d 961, ¶ 29, quoting State ex rel. Shafer v. Ohio Turnpike Comm. (1953), 159 Ohio St. 581, 590, 50 O.O. 465, 113 N.E.2d 14 (“ ‘in the absence of evidence to the contrary, public officers, administrative officers and public boards, within the limits of the jurisdiction conferred by law, will be presumed to have properly performed their duties and not to have acted illegally but regularly and in a lawful manner’ ”).