Case ID: f-appx_614/html/0038-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Herbert E. ANDERSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. XEROX CORPORATION, Lawrence M. Becker, Xerox Corporation Plan Administrator, Retirement Income Guarantee Plan (RIGP), Defendants-Appellees.
    No. 14-2849-cv.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Aug. 26, 2015.
    Nira T. Kermisch, Law Office of Nira T. Kermisch, Sudbury, MA, for Appellant.
    Margaret A. Clemens (Pamela S.C. Reynolds, on the brief), Littler Mendelson, P.C., Rochester, NY, for Appellees.
    PRESENT: JON O. NEWMAN, WALKER, DENNIS JACOBS, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Herbert E. Anderson appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York (Larimer, /.), granting summary judgment in favor of defendants-appellees Xerox Corporation (“Xerox”), Lawrence M. Becker, and the Retirement Income Guarantee Plan. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history, and the issues presented for review.

We affirm on one of the grounds relied upon by the district court: when Anderson was terminated from employment by Xerox in 2002, he executed an agreement relinquishing “any and all claims of any kind, known or unknown” — including ERISA claims — arising out of “facts which [had] occurred prior to the date of [the] Release.” Joint App’x 41. As consideration, he received a severance payment equal to 26 weeks’ salary (totaling approximately $47,000). Such releases are enforceable. Frommert v. Conkright, 535 F.3d 111, 120-23 (2d Cir.2008), rev’d and remanded on other grounds, 559 U.S. 506, 130 S.Ct. 1640, 176 L.Ed.2d 469 (2010).

As we explained in Frommert, “an individual can waive his or her right to participate in a pension plan governed by ERISA” so long as that waiver “is made knowingly and voluntarily.” 535 F.3d at 121 (internal quotation marks omitted). We specifically rejected the principal arguments that Anderson now presses: that the language of the release somehow preserved the ERISA claims at issue, id., and that the payment received was inadequate consideration, id. at 122.

Although the release in Frommert was executed after litigation began and the employees unquestionably then knew about the deduction of the “phantom account,” the booklet given to Anderson pri- or to the release gave him sufficient notice that the same type of deduction would be made in calculating his benefit. Joint App’x 65. Anderson argues that he was fraudulently induced into executing the release because it promised that the severance payment would be “in addition to anything of value to which [he was] otherwise entitled,” and he was already entitled to receive the benefits payments at issue (without the “phantom account” reduction). But that is precisely the position we rejected in Frommert. 535 F.3d at 121 (rejecting argument that “[Xerox] employees [who released claims] were entitled by law not simply to- receive some pension benefits, but to have their benefits calculated without any reduction attributable to a phantom account” (quoting Frommert v. Conkright, 472 F.Supp.2d 452, 462 (W.D.N.Y.2007))).

For the foregoing reasons, and finding no merit in Anderson’s other arguments, we hereby AFFIRM the judgment of the district court. 
      
      . Because we affirm on this basis, we need not consider whether Anderson's claims are also time-barred. Anderson's contempt claim is meritless for the reasons stated by the district court.