Court finds Ledbetter Act revives age-bias claim arising from cash balance conversion

An active pension plan participant's age-bias challenge to a cash balance conversion may be timely, even though filed years after the plan change, a federal court has ruled (Tomlinson v. El Paso Corp.). The suit alleges that a "wearaway" period after the conversion discriminated against older employees. Last Jan. 21, the court had held that the claim was not filed soon enough after the conversion. Now the court has overturned its own ruling in the wake of the Jan. 29 enactment of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The new ruling addresses only the timeliness, not the merits, of the claim.  (Select News, 3 Sep 2009)

• Full text of district court's decision in Tomlinson v. El Paso Corp. (28 Aug 2009) (PDF)

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