Overview
Participants in the IBM Personal Pension Plan may be impacted by this class action lawsuit. Please contact us if you would like to discuss how this case might affect your rights.
Summary of the Lawsuit
On June 2, 2022, Plaintiffs filed a complaint on behalf of a class of participants and beneficiaries of the IBM Personal Pension Plan, alleging violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The complaint alleges that the IBM Personal Pension Plan uses outdated mortality tables to determine the value of joint and survivor annuities (JSAs), resulting in married retirees receiving less than the actuarial equivalent of the benefit that ERISA protects. This lawsuit seeks to recover amounts due to members of the class, and to reform the IBM Personal Pension Plan to fully comply with the protections ERISA affords to pension plan participants and their beneficiaries.
Class Action Allegations
As background, in a class action case, one or more individuals—called class representatives—file a lawsuit on behalf of themselves and other individuals who have similar legal claims. A class action allows the claims of a large number of people to be combined in one lawsuit and ensures that all similarly situated persons are treated equally. A judge must certify a case as a class action in order to protect all members of the class.
This lawsuit is brought on behalf of all participants and beneficiaries of the IBM Personal Pension Plan who are receiving a joint and survivor annuity (or, for beneficiaries whose spouse died before commencing benefits, a pre-retirement survivor annuity) which is less than the value of the single life annuity converted to a joint and survivor annuity using the interest rates and mortality tables set forth in 26 U.S.C. §417(e).
Status of the Litigation
Plaintiffs filed a Class Action Complaint on June 2, 2022, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (captioned Knight v. International Business Machines Corporation, et al., Case No. 7:22-cv-04592), where the case was assigned to the Honorable Nelson S. Roman. On August 15, 2022, Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint which added several new named plaintiffs. On October 27, 2022, Defendants served their motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint. On December 19, 2022, Plaintiffs served their opposition brief to Defendants’ motion to dismiss. Finally, Defendants served their reply briefing on January 18, 2023, when all motion papers were also filed with the Court.
Whom to Contact for More Information
If you are a participant in the IBM Personal Pension Plan who selected to receive a Joint and Survivor Annuity (JSA), or if you have information which might assist us in the prosecution of these allegations, please contact:
Michelle C. Yau, Esq. (email)
Jacob Schutz, Esq. (email)
Daniel R. Sutter, Esq. (email)
Sydney Greenman, Paralegal (email)
Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC
1100 New York Avenue, N.W., Suite 500
Washington, D.C. 20005
Telephone: 888-240-0775 (Toll Free) or 202-408-4600