A Chicago pension fund dutifully paid monthly benefits to a former city truck driver through 2012 — nearly eight years after the man’s death, according to a lawsuit filed Friday.
The Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago is suing the man’s sons in an attempt to get back nearly $107,700 in unrecovered money it says it paid out only because William Galvin Jr.’s heirs never notified the fund that he died, the pension fund said in the suit, filed in Cook County.
The suit alleges that Frank and James Galvin and other unknown heirs “intended to mislead and did mislead the Fund by not notifying it of William A. Galvin, Jr.’s death, then tendered a forged (signature verification) form to the Fund in 2008 … in order to further their fraudulent scheme and mislead the Fund as to the actual fact of William A. Galvin, Jr.’s death.”
William Galvin’s sons could not be reached for comment Friday night.
After William Galvin died in October 2004, according to a death certificate included in the lawsuit, the pension fund continued sending monthly benefits to a bank account the sons allegedly had access to through 2010 — a total of 69 payments worth about $203,000.
In 2007, the fund sent a form requiring William Galvin’s signature if he wanted to continue receiving monthly payments. The form was returned, signed and notarized, according to the lawsuit.
Another signature verification form sent in May 2010 was returned by the post office, so the pension fund stopped depositing money in Galvin’s bank account but switched to sending him checks, the lawsuit states.
Though the fund received no response to additional requests for signature verification, it continued sending monthly checks and paying federal withholding tax and health insurance premiums — until officials found Galvin’s obituary in September 2012.
The bank was able to return payments deposited into Galvin’s account between 2008 and 2010, but not the nearly $107,700 deposited between November 2004 and December 2007, according to the lawsuit.
Efforts to contact relatives seeking the remaining money were unsuccessful, the lawsuit states.
According to court records, Galvin’s wife would have been eligible for survivor benefits, but she never filled out the required paperwork and died in 2005.
The three-count suit also accuses the sons of conversion and unjust enrichment and seeks nearly $163,000 in damages, including the unrecovered payments and federal withholding tax and health insurance premiums and subsidies the fund paid, in addition to attorney fees, interest and other costs.
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