The Wall Street Journal is reporting: “High Court Deals Setback to Xerox Over Pension Case.” (Subscription required.) The U.S. Supreme Court denied Xerox Corp.’s application for a stay in Berger v. Xerox, a case in which the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit had ordered Xerox Corp. to pay $300 million to former employees who the Court determined were shortchanged when Xerox calculated lump-sum pension benefits due them under the company’s cash balance plan. According to the article, the result “didn’t surprise legal experts, because one of the standards for granting the stay is the “reasonable probability” that at least four of the nine justices will agree to hear the case” and it was unlikely that the court would hear the case since the circuits were not split on the issues. According to the article:
[T]hree separate circuits that have heard similar cases involving underpayments from cash-balance plans have ruled in favor of employees, and the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in the first case that was decided, Lyons v. Georgia-Pacific Corp. “Why would they hear it now?” Prof. Choper asks. “It’s a real long shot that the court would take this case under these circumstances.”
A good outline on cash balance plan basics at this link.
Also, you can access numerous previous posts on the Xerox case here.