William D. Fulghum, et al. v. EMBARQ Corporation, et al.

The Nygaard Law Firm represents the following putative class:

All persons, including all plan participants and all eligible spouse and dependent plan beneficiaries, whose rights to medical, prescription drug, and/or life insurance benefits or premium subsidies have been adversely affected by the terminations, reductions and changes in retiree benefits which were announced (1) by Defendant Sprint Nextel Corporation in or about November 2005, and (2) by Defendant Embarq Corporation on July 26, 2007.

This lawsuit is a legal challenge to reverse the changes in retiree benefits that were announced by Embarq Corporation in July 2007. These changes were: (1) the elimination of company-provided retiree medical benefits for people who are eligible for Medicare and the elimination of the company's monthly subsidy for Medicare premiums, and (2) the reduction in the amount of company-paid life insurance to a maximum of $ 10,000 (for some retirees who participated in the Carolina Telephone & Telegraph Company's VEBA, the change was the total elimination of company-paid life

insurance).

The medical and life insurance benefits are governed exclusively by the federal pension and benefits law, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (also known as "ERISA"). This federal law does not allow any state laws to regulate benefits of this kind.

The lawsuit makes legal claims that Embarq violated the retirees' rights under ERISA by denying them medical and life insurance benefits that were permanent and could not be taken away. A second, alternative ERISA claim is that Embarq, Sprint and other defendants violated their fiduciary duty to describe the benefits accurately and did not clearly inform employees and retirees that these benefits could be taken away.

The lawsuit asks the court to award payments for benefits that were not paid but that should have been paid, and/or to provide money to take away from the companies the financial advantages that they gained by misleading employees and retirees about the benefits.

A copy of the Amended Complaint can be found here.  A copy of Defendants' Answer and Motion to Dismiss is also available here.

On December 2, 2008, Judge Kathryn H. Vratil of the United States District Court for the District of Kansas issued an Order denying, in part, Defendants' Motion to Dismiss. 

For more information, contact:

Diane A. Nygaard

The Nygaard Law Firm

4501 College Boulevard

Suite 260

Leawood, Kansas 66211

(913) 469-5544

diane@nygaardlaw.com