State ex rel. Public Employees Retirement Ass'n v. Longacre

**Court Allows Retirement System to Recover Overpayments Beyond One-Year Limit** This case involved Maria Longacre, a retiree who received pension overpayments from New Mexico's Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA). PERA discovered they had paid Longacre more money than she was entitled to receive and wanted to recover those excess payments. However, more than one year had passed since the overpayments were made. Longacre argued that a state law prevented PERA from collecting the money back after the one-year deadline had expired. The New Mexico Supreme Court sided with PERA, ruling that the state law allowing recovery of overpayments is constitutional and valid. The court determined that PERA could legally demand repayment of the excess money, even though more than a year had passed since the overpayments occurred. **What This Means for Workers:** Public employees should carefully monitor their retirement benefits and pension payments. If you receive overpayments from your retirement system, the money may need to be paid back regardless of how much time has passed. This ruling shows that retirement systems have broad authority to recover mistaken payments, so workers cannot rely on time limits to protect them from repayment demands.