Maurice Chevalier
Member
- Feb 3, 2004
- 17
- 0
Judge tosses out Continental Airlines suit claiming 9 pilots got sham divorces
U.S. District Judge Gray Miller said he can't condone the pilots' alleged actions. But he ruled that the law doesn't allow Continental's pension administrator to consider the employees' motivation for getting divorced in deciding whether to distribute benefits.
The pilots in question all obtained divorces from various states with domestic relations orders that assigned 100 percent, and in one case 90 percent, of their retirement benefits under the plan to their spouses. The retirement plan qualified the domestic relations orders and, because the pilots were of retirement age when the alternate payees requested a lump-sum payout, the plan paid the benefits.
Miller said "the facts show -- and the pilots do not seem to contest -- that the pilots and their former spouses did not behave in a manner consistent with the breakup of a marriage." He said many of the pilots continued to cohabitate, remarried soon after obtaining the lump-sum payout and all essentially conducted themselves as if the divorce had never happened.
U.S. District Judge Gray Miller said he can't condone the pilots' alleged actions. But he ruled that the law doesn't allow Continental's pension administrator to consider the employees' motivation for getting divorced in deciding whether to distribute benefits.
The pilots in question all obtained divorces from various states with domestic relations orders that assigned 100 percent, and in one case 90 percent, of their retirement benefits under the plan to their spouses. The retirement plan qualified the domestic relations orders and, because the pilots were of retirement age when the alternate payees requested a lump-sum payout, the plan paid the benefits.
Miller said "the facts show -- and the pilots do not seem to contest -- that the pilots and their former spouses did not behave in a manner consistent with the breakup of a marriage." He said many of the pilots continued to cohabitate, remarried soon after obtaining the lump-sum payout and all essentially conducted themselves as if the divorce had never happened.
