ERISA Pension Class Actions

GLF is currently prosecuting a pension miscalculation case against Colgate-Palmolive on behalf of a class of 1,200 former employees who were twice underpaid the pensions they are owed:  first, when they elected lump sum payouts of their age-65 annuities, and, a second time, when Colgate miscalculated the supplemental annuities the company pledged to pay them in recognition of its underpayment of the initial lump sums.

The case began approximately 10 years ago and is currently before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals for a second time.

In March 2023, in response to Colgate’s first appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed an August 2020 District Court final order (the Honorable Lorna Schofield)  finding Colgate liable for having failed to correctly participants’ supplemental annuities.  See McCutcheon v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., 62 F.4th 674 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 144 S. Ct. 99 (2023), affirming, 481 F. Supp. 3d 252 (S.D.N.Y. 2020).

Instead of complying with that fully affirmed final judgment, Colgate sought to reduce or delay payments to the class members that it should have made decades ago by declaring that it had come up with two new arguments that would shave “tens of millions of dollars” off of its liability to class members.

In March 2024, Judge Schofield rebuffed Colgate’s second-bite-at-the-apple gambit both procedurally and substantively.  Judge Schofield held Colgate’s new arguments are barred procedurally, both because they contradicted the final judgment and because they could have been, but were not, presented either to the District Court before its 2020 final judgment had issued or to the Second Circuit before it had affirmed that final judgment and returned its mandate. Judge Schofield thus found the arguments foreclosed by the law-of-the-case doctrine and its subsidiary mandate and waiver rules. But Judge Schofield also held the new arguments barred substantively because they were wrong on their merits.

Colgate appealed Judge Schofield’s ruling and the case is now before the Second Circuit which is expected to soon schedule oral argument.  A decision is anticipated sometime in 2025.