51.1-813 - Disability resulting from activities in discharge of official duties.
§ 51.1-813. Disability resulting from activities in discharge of officialduties.
If any member of a police department of a county, city, or town, other thanthe City of Richmond, which has a pension plan becomes disabled as a resultof activities in the discharge of the member's official duties, the membershall receive, as pension and benefits during such disability, the sum of notless than sixty-six and two-thirds percent of the member's salary untileligible to retire under age and service retirement. The member shall thenbe retired on the age and service pension as provided in § 51.1-811.
Any member of a county, city, or town police department or any sheriff ordeputy sheriff who dies or is totally or partially disabled as a result ofhypertension or heart disease shall be presumed to have died or becomedisabled in the line of duty, unless the contrary is shown by a preponderanceof competent evidence. To be eligible, or for a beneficiary to be eligible,for retirement, sickness, or other benefit payments based upon suchpresumption, a member, sheriff, or deputy sheriff shall, before the claim wasfiled, have had a physical examination and been found free from hypertensionor heart disease. The physical examination shall have included suchappropriate laboratory and other diagnostic studies as the governing bodyprescribed and shall have been conducted by physicians whose qualificationswere prescribed by the governing body. Any member, sheriff, or deputysheriff filing a claim for such benefits based upon disability incurred inthe line of duty shall, if requested by the governing body, submit to aphysical examination by any physician designated by the governing body. Theexamination may include such tests or studies as may reasonably be prescribedby the designated physician or, in the case of a claim for death benefits,include a postmortem examination to be performed by the medical examiner forthe county, city, or town appointed under § 32.1-282. The member or claimantshall have the right to have present at such examination, at his own expense,any qualified physician he may designate.
(Michie Code 1942, § 3035k; Code 1950, § 51-122; 1950, p. 739; 1973, c. 499;1974, c. 94; 1976, c. 772; 1978, c. 769; 1982, c. 581; 1990, c. 832.)