Court Opinion

ID: 9467080
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:37:58.645071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:08.920074
License: Public Domain

NICHOLS, Judge,
concurring:
I concur with no reservation in Judge Cudahy’s opinion. I would like to make the following additional points.
It is as I understand typical of private industrial companies, and was the case here, that middle-management executive or administrative employees had no Roth -type expectation of continued employment based on a “legitimate claim of entitlement to it.” (Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 5. Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972)). The lowering of “normal retirement” from 65 to 60 did not confer on the employer any additional legal right to get rid of employees unwanted because of age or any other reasons. What it did was to vest the entitlement to pensions at the earlier age and thus make it more costly to get rid of an employee aged between 60 and 65. It would, however, require a Board of Directors of more than usual intestinal fortitude to fire an employee of thirty years service, within the last five years before vesting, unless the company was in dire financial straits, while after vesting it would be much easier. Therefore, it is possible enough to notice on summary judgment, that the whole exercise was a subterfuge to get rid of Mr. Smart. It should be a simple matter to explain the real reason for the change, if there was a different one. I suspect it may turn out to have been a tax problem. The texts of the plan, before and after the change, are in our record. We judges are not such innate experts on pension plans that we can winnow out the intended legal and economic effects of a change in one, even if the answer, when given, rests on the texts, plus 'statutes and regulatory materials we could take judicial notice of when called to our attention. I entirely agree we are not required to postulate a reason where none is stated. It is the defendant’s misfortune that to the uninformed, the whole operation looks at first glance like a contrivance to do Mr. Smart in, though easing his downfall with his pension.