Court sides with Xerox employees
Rehired workers’ pension changes prompted 100 to sue.
January
2006 – A group of more than 100 employees who sued Xerox Corp. over
changes to their pension plans have won a decision from an appeals court
The
2nd Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, located in New York City, has
ruled employees who had left the company and were later rehired were
not properly informed by Xerox about the change.
Friday’s ruling reversed an earlier decision by U.S. District Judge David Larimer.
“This
is a decision that says Xerox simply did not follow the rules,” said
New Jersey attorney Robert A. Jaffe, who represented the plaintiffs.
The
policy in question discounted pensions earned during a worker’s second
tenure by the value of their original pension, plus interest.
The
action violated the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act,
the court ruled. Xerox could appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme
Court.
“We are disappointed by the decision and we will evaluate options, which include continuing to appeal,” a Xerox spokesman said.
The change slashed the value of pensions, in some cases by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The case was originally filed in 1999, with employee Paul Frommert as the lead plaintiff.
Frommert, of Webster, declined comment on the most recent court ruling.
Last year Larimer, of the U.S. District Court’s Western District in Rochester, granted Xerox a motion to dismiss.
But
in its ruling Friday, the 2nd Circuit said Larimer erred in calculating
when the plaintiffs were informed of the change in policy.
We
“reject the district court’s findings that the plaintiffs’ claim for
fiduciary duty was untimely,” Judge Nicholas Garaufis wrote for the
court.
If Xerox does not appeal, the case will be sent back to the
Western District for further examination, which could lead to a
settlement.
The plaintiffs hope Xerox will want to sit down and
negotiate payments, Jaffe said: “I just hope they’ll be a good employer
and try to resolve this. That would be the best for these people.”