In May 2024, Renaker Scott LLP and co-counsel Kantor & Kantor LLP received a victory from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Bafford v. Administrative Committee of the Northrop Grumman Pension Plan., No. 22-55634, ___ F.4th ___, 2024 WL 2067884 (9th Cir. May 9, 2024). In a second appeal in this case during the last three years, the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of the case, which will allow the case to proceed again in the district court.
This case was brought by participants in the Northrop Grumman Pension Plan, on behalf of themselves and a class of similarly situated individuals, against the plan administrator. Plaintiffs received grossly overstated pension statements for years, relied upon that information in planning for retirement, and then well after retiring were told that the benefits were miscalculated and their pensions would be drastically reduced. In the lawsuit, plaintiffs seek to redress the committee’s violations of ERISA’s disclosure requirements.
In this decision, the Ninth Circuit recognized the harm that occurs for employees planning for retirement when they receive inaccurate pension information. As the Ninth Circuit put it, “[u]nlike a participant who does not receive any pension benefit statement and therefore does not know their retirement benefit, a participant who receives a significantly inaccurate statement may be affirmatively misled into believing that their pension will be greater than it is and make inadvisable decisions as a result.”
You can read the Ninth Circuit’s decision here.
For more information about the Northrop pension litigation, please contact Teresa Renaker, teresa@renakerscott.com, or Kirsten Scott, kirsten@renakerscott.com.