Appeals court upholds duty disability benefits for CPD whistleblower

An Illinois appellate court has upheld a former Chicago police detective’s entitlement to duty disability benefits, affirming she suffered depression while on duty after being retaliated against and harassed for reporting the possible misconduct of two officers.

Chicago’s Retirement Board of the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund in February 2023 denied former Chicago police Det. Beth Svec’s application for duty disability benefits and only approved ordinary disability benefits, claiming that her diagnosis for depression and anxiety did not derive from an act of duty.

The case stems from when Svec was investigating the arrests that two CPD officers made of two men on May 30, 2016, on the South Side.

Svec was placed on medical leave in May 2017 because of depression “stemming from the 2016 arrest investigation and subsequently triggered by the lawsuit-related backlash she received,” states the appellate court order, which was issued Wednesday.

A doctor had diagnosed Svec with major depressive disorder and unspecified anxiety, and advised her not to return to work in any capacity. She never returned to work after taking medical leave.

The officers told Svec, and documented in a police report, that they arrested two men — one who was sitting on top of a gun on a barstool on a front porch, and one who allegedly punched an officer in the head when they approached the first man.

But the officers’ narrative of the arrests was inconsistent with video footage of the arrests, as well as with statements from witnesses and the two men who were arrested.

Svec reported the inconsistencies to her supervisors and the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, which eventually declined to charge the two men.

In a lawsuit filed in 2017, Svec said she was harassed and retaliated against by her superiors and other officers for reporting the possible misconduct. After she reported the incident, Svec was transferred to the Englewood District from Area South, told to work midnight shifts instead of day shifts and told not to investigate unlawful gun possession cases.

The appellate court’s ruling said the harassment escalated after Svec filed the lawsuit against the city of Chicago. The lawsuit concluded in 2022 when a jury awarded Svec more than $4.3 million and decided the city violated the Illinois Whistleblower Act.

A doctor determined again in November 2022, after the verdict in her lawsuit, that she continued to suffer from major depressive disorder and anxiety disorder, and that she should not return to work.

In its denial to Svec’s request for duty disability benefits, the retirement board argued Svec’s psychological disorders instead developed during her medical leave. The board said her depression and anxiety “resulted from a culmination of negative occurrences and/or interactions related to her whistleblower case of history with CPD — not a single, identifiable act of police duty involving special risk.”

Svec subsequently filed a complaint for administrative review in Cook County circuit court, which in December 2023 reversed the retirement board’s ruling and found that Svec was entitled to duty disability benefits.

The retirement board appealed the circuit court’s ruling, which led to Wednesday’s order in which the Illinois First District Appellate Court ruled that Svec’s psychological injuries “resulted from an act of police duty.”

Svec’s "act of duty in investigating the May 30, 2016, arrest led directly — and immediately — to retaliation and harassment by her superior and fellow officers, which escalated after she filed a whistleblower complaint,” Justice Jesse Reyes of the appeals court wrote.

“This retaliation and harassment resulted in plaintiff’s psychological injuries,” the ruling stated. “As such, plaintiff became disabled ‘as a result of injury incurred in the performance of an act of duty … and she is therefore entitled to a duty disability pension benefit.’”

Under duty disability benefits, a police officer is entitled to 75% of their salary at the time of the disability, while ordinary disability benefits entitles an officer to 50% of their salary.