It's been nearly 40 years since Mark Common, a young and athletic Santa Barbara County fire engineer, suddenly collapsed and died, leaving behind a grieving wife and infant son to build a new life without him.

And, as it so often does, life went on in the wake of Common's untimely death of heart failure at age 26.

Common's widow, Gail, eventually remarried and later divorced, and his son grew up and today has a family of his own.

Through most of that time, Gail Common simply shouldered on and accepted a county retirement board's ruling that her husband's death was not service-related, which meant she was not eligible for ongoing retirement benefits. Instead, she received a one-time payment of a few thousand dollars.

That all changed abruptly in 2002, when Gail Common learned that her husband's name had been placed on the California Firefighters Memorial in Capitol Park in Sacramento, which honors firefighters who have died in the line of duty.

"How could his name be on the wall if he hadn't died in the line of duty?" she wondered.

"I don't understand any of it," Common said. "It doesn't make sense."

That question led her to make several attempts, beginning in 2003, to get the Santa Barbara County Board of Retirement to reconsider and reverse its earlier decision.

But the retirement board repeatedly turned Gail Common down, and she is now seeking redress in the courts. A procedural hearing in her case is scheduled for today.

Mark Common probably seemed an unlikely candidate for sudden death in 1970. He appeared healthy and loved playing basketball.

But in the month prior to his death, there were warning signs that something was wrong.

On Jan. 8, 1970, Common complained of shortness of breath while fighting a brush fire, and had to rest frequently, according to a court document filed on behalf of his family.

Three days later, a tank explosion sparked a fire that was accompanied by a strong smell of hydrogen sulfide, and Common collapsed while fighting the blaze.

While on duty Feb. 9, 1970, Common complained of chest pain and an ache in his left arm.

On Feb. 17, 1970, Common fell to the floor unconscious while on duty in his home adjacent to the Los Alamos fire station, according to the court document and a letter written to the retirement board by then-Fire Chief Victor Mohr.

Common was taken by ambulance to Marian Medical Center, where he died.

The day after Common passed away, Mohr filled out an injury report for Common in which he referenced the Jan. 8 incident, and said that Common was hurt on that day because of hazards of the job, and that the injury resulted in death.

Gail Common subsequently applied to the Santa Barbara County Employees' Retirement System (SBCERS) for service-related disability retirement benefits, but was denied.

The SBCERS Retirement Board claimed that Common's death was not work-related, according to the petition filed in Santa Barbara County Superior Court by the law firm Nye, Peabody, Stirling & Hale, LLP, which is representing Gail Common.

The petition claims evidence shows that Mark Common's death was service-related.

Attorney Alan Blakeboro of Reicker, Pfau, Pyle & McRoy LLP, the law firm representing the Retirement Board in the matter, said he believes the board's decision was in accordance with the law, and its correctness will be confirmed by the Superior Court.

Common, now a 60-year-old grandmother and a Buellton resident, said she wants answers as to why she continues to be denied the benefits she feels she deserves.

She is not alone in her confusion.

Jim Harrison, who retired as a division chief in 2003 after 36 years with the county Fire Department, worked with Mark Common when both were young firefighters.

The two were stationed together for a short time at the Orcutt fire station, and worked together as North County firefighters for a few years.

"I liked Mark," Harrison said. "We weren't best friends, but I liked him. He was a firefighter. We were the same age ... We did things together. We were family."

Harrison said he helped Common when he collapsed at the tank explosion fire, and had seen him experience chest pains on duty.

"I think that he was having problems with his heart. I don't think that any of us knew it. I don't think he knew it," Harrison said.

He added that he thinks Common had a heart attack brought on by the stress of the job.

Harrison said he only found out that Gail Common wasn't getting service-related disability retirement benefits in 2003, when he received a call first from her daughter-in-law, Keri Common, and later that same day from Gail.

"It bothered me a lot," he said. "It bothers me today."

"All these years, I thought that she was getting benefits that she should have been getting," Harrison said.

Gail Common was 20 years old when her husband died, and their son, Alan, was only 10 months old.

At the time, she accepted the decision made by the retirement board (which included Mark Common's father, Fletcher Common, who was then deputy fire chief for the county) that she was not eligible for the service-related retirement benefits.

Thinking she had no other option, she applied for and received the one-time death benefit payment of $4,022.30, according to the petition.

"There wasn't a thought in my mind that I was supposed to, because I was told I couldn't," Common said of receiving service-related retirement benefits.

Common said she initially moved back in with her parents after her husband died. She lived off social security and veterans' benefits, as Mark Common had served in the Navy.

"I didn't consider myself poor," she said.

Common eventually married another firefighter, and later divorced him.

In 2003, Common again applied for the service-related retirement, and the retirement board asked her to withdraw her application because she had already been paid the non-service-related disability benefit, and in another letter said there was no evidence of a service-related injury, according to the court document.

In yet another letter, the retirement board told Common it had decided to dismiss her application.

Gail Common and Keri Common continued the fight, with Keri speaking before the Retirement Board in April of this year, and the board sent Gail Common a letter denying her request for reconsideration, according to the petition.

In May, the Retirement Board issued a final determination denying Gail Common's request for service-connected retirement benefits. The board informed Common that she could seek judicial review of the decision, the petition said.

The petition requests that the court review and set aside the retirement board's decision, and instruct the board to pay Common service-related retirement benefits from the time of her husband's death to the present.

Curt Warner, who retired from the county Fire Department as a captain in March, was a member of the Santa Barbara County Firefighters Benevolent Foundation Board of directors, and was in charge of submitting names of county firefighters killed in the line of duty to be put on the California Firefighters Memorial wall.

Warner said he was granted access to personnel files, and did extensive research to verify line-of-duty deaths for the firefighters.

"I had corroborated this information," he said. "I felt very comfortable with this information."

"As far as we knew, Mark Common was a work-related, line-of-duty death. So, therefore, the surviving family, the designated person, would be receiving full benefits for that. And there was never even a thought in my mind that Gail wasn't receiving that check."

Keri Common, an Orcutt resident who is married to Gail's son, Alan, and has two children with him, said Gail gave her the paperwork concerning Mark's case last year.

"As I was looking at it, I was getting really mad and really confused because nothing was making sense," she said.

Keri Common dug in, leading the charge to correct what she saw as a grave wrongdoing.

"I love puzzles, and this was the biggest one I could find," she added.

Blakeboro, representing the retirement board, said in a written statement that the board has yet to file a formal response to Gail Common's petition, but plans to do so shortly.

"It is highly unusual for the board to be asked to reconsider a matter decided nearly 40 years ago," he said.

"The board denied the petitioner's request for reconsideration based on its lack of legal authority to reconsider prior rulings in such circumstances, as well as for the reason that the passage of time has made it virtually impossible for it to meaningfully review the matter," Blakeboro said.

He said that even if there were legal means for the matter to be reconsidered, there is a lack of medical evidence in the record that Common's job duties caused his death.

Keri Common said that Mark's name is expected to be placed on the International Association of Fire Fighters wall in Colorado that honors firefighters killed in the line of duty.

After the case has been dealt with, Common family members will visit the California Firefighters Memorial and see Mark's name, she said.

"After all this is said and done, we're going."