Requa case settlement - Part 3

Plaintiff Joe Requa

Blog readers will recall the Requa lawsuit by retirees from Lawrence Livermore National Lab over entitlement to UC retiree health care benefits.* When Lab management was moved to a consortium including UC, the health benefits package was changed for LLNL employees. Retirees sued claiming a vested right to the UC package. Potentially, the suit might have tested the proposition that - contrary to UC's stance that retiree health benefits are a kind of voluntary gift and not a vested right - retiree health care is an obligation of UC. However, a settlement was reached that largely involved cash payments from UC. In that way, the LLNL got something and UC didn't risk testing its stance in court.

The final outcome is now playing out as the article below indicates. Note, however, the last sentence reproduced below which suggests some type of entitlement:

An official notice has been mailed to thousands of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory retirees affected by the recent University of California health care settlement agreement, including a detailed questionnaire that must be answered to ensure future benefits. The settlement was announced last month, resolving a nine-year class action lawsuit in which the retirees sought reinstatement in UC health care benefits programs that they enjoyed prior to a 2007 management contract change.

The lawsuit class, including heirs and estates of deceased retirees, includes about 9,000 members. Although they did not achieve reinstatement, they won two other key benefits. One provides $84.5 million in total financial assistance for specified past losses and expected future costs.

The other offers a guarantee of future reinstatement in UC’s health care benefits programs should the current Laboratory manager terminate its benefits program or materially change it...

Full story at https://www.independentnews.com/news/retirees-to-get-mailings-from-lawsuit-settlement/article_7a5ec738-3da3-11ea-8883-67da7b850971.html

Here is a notice from the Lawrence Livermore Retirees Assn.:

[Click on image to enlarge and clarify.]

Screenshot from https://www.livermorelabretirees.org/cucra-news as of 1/26/20

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*A recent post is at https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2019/12/requa-case-settlement-part-2.html. That post will provide a link to prior posts. (Each post refers to the previous one.)