Ford Not Responsible for Miscalculating Pension Benefits

Only an Estimate: Ford Motor Co. will not be responsible for paying the full amount of benefits it had mistakenly said it owed a retiree, a federal court ruled last month. The case, filed by a Ford retiree in the Eastern District of Michigan, alleged that Ford breached its fiduciary duty when the company told Louis Akouri shortly before he retired after 39 years on the job that it would pay him $1,820 a month in pension payments. The company later said it overestimated the payments in a benefits letter sent to Akouri. Ford later put the benefit at $1,454 a month. Judge Denise Page Hood ruled that Ford had not breached its fiduciary duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act because the company had not intentionally misled Akouri. Hood also ruled that the letter sent to Akouri, which the court described as an “Estimated Pension Benefit” letter, was not a summary plan description and therefore could not be used by the plaintiffs as evidence that Ford had misled the retiree about his benefits.