Cash Balance Suit Plaintiff Seeks Dismissal
Rehearing
February 10, 2009 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - An employee
who had his age discrimination claim against a cash balance
plan dismissed has asked a federal judge to reconsider the
dismissal in light of the signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair
Pay Act.
Plaintiff Wayne Tomlinson argued that with
President Obama's January 29 signing of the Ledbetter
bill into law (See
Ledbetter Pay
Equity Bill Signed into Law
), the U.S. Supreme Court's May 2007 ruling in
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.
(which the Ledbetter bill was intended to overturn)
should no longer be considered controlling case law (See
High Court Rejects Years-Old Discrimination Claims
).
U.S. District Judge Walker D. Miller of the U.S.
District Court for the District of Colorado rejected
Tomlinson's contention that the El Paso
Corporation's cash balance plan represented a
"pattern and practice" of age discrimination
and that a new discriminatory act was committed each time
benefits were calculated.
Miller ruled that the conversion of the pension
plan to a cash balance plan was a "discrete
act," or benefits-setting decision, that was
analogous to the pay-setting decision in the Supreme
Court's
Ledbetter
case
. Relying on the
Ledbetter
ruling, Miller found that Tomlinson's first cash
balance plan complaint came too late because the
alleged discriminatory conduct would have taken place in
2001; Tomlinson's charge was filed in July
2004.
The
Ledbetter
law amended Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the
Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the
Rehabilitation Act to provide that the charge-filing
period, which is 300 days in most states, is triggered
each time compensation is paid pursuant to a
discriminatory compensation decision or practice.
In its own legal papers, El Paso argued that
Tomlinson had not presented arguments compelling enough
to warrant Miller to rethink his prior ruling.
The case is
Tomlinson v. El Paso Corp.,
D. Colo., No. 04-cv-02686-WDM.
Fred Schneyer
editors@plansponsor.com