What are the consequences if an employee becomes incompetent at the time of retirement and then dies?

The employee having long before become a member of the retirement system, he remained such a member until the happening of an event which would end that membership. Section 226 of Part I, Article 3 of the San Francisco Municipal Code provides for cessation of membership on death, retirement, insufficient employment time, discharge or resignation. Section 154 of the Charter, along with other matters with which we are not here concerned, provides that no permanent employee shall be discharged except for cause and then only after a hearing. One of the causes for removal or discharge therein listed is: Incompetence. Upon separation of an employee for any cause other than retirement, the employee or his estate would be entitled to return of all he had put into the fund. Upon retirement, the employee could no longer exercise any of the options (Charter section 165.2(B)), nor could he thereafter elect to recover his contributions. If he were legally incapacitated before retirement, his guardian could, of course, do for him whatever he otherwise could have done for himself. It is also provided in the Charter that if no election of option were made by the employee before the retirement, then his pension check would be for the maximum amount. The fact that decedent signed a couple of forms in which he elected [158 Cal.App.2d 463] to take the maximum amount during the time when according to the stipulation he was mentally incompetent is of no consequence, for what he did receive is just what he would have gotten if he had not signed either the 'compulsory service retirement form' or the 'election with regard to option.' The pension provisions of the City Charter are an integral portion of the contract of employment (Dryden v. Board of Pension Com'rs, 6 Cal.2d 575 at page 579, 59 P.2d 104). Here the provisions for miximum benefits if no election were made by the employee were in the Charter long before the employee became incompetent.