7th Circuit Opinion on Class Certification Issue

In today’s posting at Jottings By an Employer’s Lawyer, Michael Fox discusses a recent 7th Circuit opinion written by Judge Richard Posner on a procedural issue involving an ERISA section 510 case–In In Re: Allstate Insurance Company (7th Cir. 3/28/05) [pdf]. The plaintiffs in the case allege that the employer who had decided to replace its employee insurance agents with independent contractors harassed them so that they would quit so as not to qualify for severance benefits. The class seeks a judgment declaring that the members are entitled to the benefits they would have received under the employer’s ERISA severance plan “had they been fired rather than quitting.” The former employees allege that the employer harassed them by “extending office hours, imposing burdensome reporting requirements, reducing or eliminating reimbursement for office expenses, and setting unrealistic sales quotas.”