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NEW YORK (AP) - An employee of the former Fleet Bank can move ahead with a lawsuit accusing her company of discriminating against thousands of older workers when it switched to a new type of pension plan, a federal judge has ruled.
The preliminary ruling by U.S. District Judge Janet Hall in Bridgeport, Conn., focuses on cash balance plans. Many large companies embraced cash balance as an alternative to traditional pensions in the late 1990s, before controversy erupted over whether the plans unfairly penalized workers with many years of experience.
A cash balance plan combines some aspects of a traditional pension plan with some trappings of a 401(k). Employers make a yearly contribution to a hypothetical individual "account." Workers are allowed to take the money with them if they leave for another job.
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