Continental Airlines
pilot divorce pension lawsuit thrown out
Divorces can happen for a variety of reasons. One lawsuit
from Continental Airlines alleged that Continental pilots had
less-than-admirable motivation for filing for divorce from their spouses: to collect a
$900,000 early lump sum from the airline's pension plan.
Continental Airlines and the committee that runs the
retirement plan for pilots brought a lawsuit against nine of its pilots,
accusing of them of staging sham divorces so that their ex-spouses could
collect pilots' retirement benefits, even as the pilots continued to fly.
A federal judge tossed out the case recently, ruling that
the Continental pension administrators did not have the authority to determine
the grounds for divorce of employees. As the suit revolved around the divorce
motivations, rather than the legality of the divorces themselves, U.S. District
Judge Gray Miller determined that the case should be dismissed.
According to the Associated Press, Miller stated that
"the facts show — and the pilots do not seem to contest — that the pilots
and their former spouses did not behave in a manner consistent with the breakup
of a marriage."
According to Miller, many of the pilots in the case
continued to live with spouses with whom they'd divorced, and even remarried,
soon after the pensions were paid out. Continental Airlines claimed that the
pilots kept their divorces a secret from friends and family.
Miller told the AP that he couldn't condone the alleged
actions of the pilots, but that the law did not apply in this case.
Essentially, he stated, good faith motivations for divorce were not "an
enumerated requirement" of the pension plan.
Continental claimed that the pilots had taken advantage of a
loophole in the pension plan that, according to the AP, "in cases of
divorce allows payment of benefits before the worker retires." The pilots
in the case were over retirement age, which allowed the payees--the pilots'
ex-spouses--to collect the lump sum payment upon request.
Continental fired all of the pilots following the discovery
of the pension payouts, only one of whom it hired back in return for promise of
repayment of the pension sum. In the case, Continental was seeking not only
repayment of the distributed pensions, but also a statement from the court that
their subsequent dismissal of pilots was not discriminatory.
Both of these
goals went unmet with the dismissal of the case.
According to the Houston Chronicle, "Continental
officials called the judge’s ruling a technical reading of the federal statute
regulating pension plans, but said they were heartened that Miller seemed to
agree with their premise that the divorces did not appear to be
legitimate."
Lawyers for the pilots, on the other hand, viewed the case's
dismissal as a vindication. The pilots are filing counterclaims, citing damages
and back pay after they were fired. Lawyers for the pilots also claimed that
Continental "spent a year and a half investigating the personal and family
lives of nine of its pilots on the pretext of trying to administer its pension
fund."
A clear cut resolution to the case was clearly not in the
cards with Judge Miller's decision. What he did make clear about his decision
was that divorce law, rather than the private lives of the pilots or the vehemence
of Continental, was the deciding factor.
