Rush v. State Teachers' Retirement System
Annotate this Case
Rush retired in 2012. The California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) calculated his pension as 92.58 percent of his final compensation. Rush disputed the determination of his “final compensation,” defined as “the highest average annual compensation earnable by a member during any period of 12 consecutive months” For 12 consecutive months over portions of two school years, Rush served as an associate dean at a salary significantly higher than his salary during the other portions of those years.
CalSTRS applied Education Code section 22115(d): If a member worked at least 90 percent of a school year at the higher pay rate, compensation earnable was to be calculated as if the member earned all service credit for the year at the higher rate. If the member worked less than 90 percent of the year at the higher rate, as Rush did, compensation earnable “shall be the quotient obtained when creditable compensation paid in that year is divided by the service credit for that year.” The court of appeal upheld CalSTRS’s calculation as within the range of reasonable statutory construction.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.