Priscilla Belland v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a Federal Body

Over 250 people, many of whom had worked in the same factory for several decades, had their monthly pension payments cut by seventy-five percent — from $6.00 to $1.50 per month for each year of service— when their employer shut down the plant at which they were employed. They brought, a claim under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), a statute that was passed in order to avoid precisely the kind of tragedy recounted here. Although there is no question that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) was statutorily authorized to extend coverage to the appellants, it…