United Mine Workers v. Brushy Creek Coal Co.

POSNER, Circuit Judge.

The United Mine Workers union, along with 63 retired coal mine workers, appeals from the grant of summary judgment to the Brushy Creek Coal Company, the workers’ former employer. The plaintiffs argue that they are entitled by the Taft-Hartley Act and ERISA to a trial to try to prove that a health plan negotiated by the parties in 1998 guaranteed the company’s workers lifetime health benefits that the company could not unilaterally reduce even after the collective bargaining agreement that had created the plan expired. If the district judge was correct that the plan…