Deschamps v. Bridgestone Americas, Inc.

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Before accepting a transfer to a Bridgestone facility in North Carolina, Deschamps expressed concern about losing pension credit for his 10 years of employment with Bridgestone in Canada. After receiving assurances from Bridgestone’s management team that he would keep his pension credit, Deschamps accepted the position. For several years, Deschamps received written materials confirming that his date of service for pension purposes would be August 1983. He turned down employment with a competitor at a higher salary because of the purportedly higher pension benefits he would receive at Bridgestone. In 2010, Deschamps discovered that Bridgestone had changed his service date to August 1993, the date he began working at the American plant. After failed attempts to appeal this change through Bridgestone’s internal procedures, Deschamps filed suit, alleging equitable estoppel, breach of fiduciary duty, and an anti-cutback violation of ERISA, 29 U.S.C. 1054(g). The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Deschamps on all three claims. The text of the plan “is at worst ambiguous, but at best, favors Deschamps’s argument that he was a covered employee in 1983” and, as a result of the change in the interpretation of this provision that excluded foreign employees from being classified as covered employees, Deschamps’s benefits were decreased. View "Deschamps v. Bridgestone Americas, Inc." on Justia Law