Does the statute of limitations apply to an administrative process to recoup pension overpayments?

¹⁵ Appellants rely on County of Marin Assn. of Firefighters v. Marin County Employees Retirement Assn. (1994) 30 Cal.App.4th 1638, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 736 to argue that the statute of limitations applies to an administrative process to recoup overpayments of pension benefits. However, that case arose in a different posture than this action, and not in the context of an administrative process to recoup overpayments, and thus is not persuasive. In County of Marin an employee association successfully filed a lawsuit to obtain a higher benefit payment retroactively by requiring the retirement association to include holiday pay in the pension benefit calculation. As part of the litigation, the retirement association contended that because it was required to retroactively pay higher pension benefits, it was entitled to recover contributions from the member in arrears to fund the higher benefits. County of Marin concluded that in the context of the lawsuit, the retirement association was barred by the statute of limitations from collecting contributions in arrears. The arrears issue was first raised by the retirement association in the context of litigation, and thus County of Marin did not address the issue presented here, namely whether an administrative process to recover overpayments is controlled by the statute of limitations. (See City of Oakland v. Public Employees' Retirement System (2002) 95 Cal.App.4th 29, 49, 115 Cal.Rptr.2d 151 [explaining that County of Marin should not be misapplied to support the application of the statute of limitations to an administrative reclassification proceeding because "County of Marin was discussing a claim made in a civil action"].) Because County of Marin did not consider or discuss whether it was proper to apply the statute of limitations to an administrative recoupment process as opposed to a civil litigation proceeding, we find it to be inapposite to the issue presented here.