Status of our Fight for our Pensions
- Details
- Published: Sunday, 02 July 2017 11:23
Updated February 27, 2018
For almost eight years, U.S. taxpayer-paid government lawyers have taken advantage of every procedural roadblock the law allows in an effort to keep from us emails and other evidence that are relevant proving to our case.
Our legal team has won and reviewed – from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, U.S. Treasury Department, and other sources – more than 100,000 documents totaling over a million pages. Virtually every ruling by Federal judges in Detroit, Cincinnati, and Washington over this time has supported our request for transparency so we can gain the evidence we need to have our "day in court."
U.S. District Judge Emmett G. Sullivan in Washington DC Ordered that U.S. Treasury provide to DSRA's attorneys relevant portions of 63 documents – relating to GM, Delphi or the PBGC – that the government has sought to keep from us under the assertion of "presidential communication privilege." Judge Sullivan reaffirmed this in an Order on July 12, 2017, ordering that U.S. Treasury must produce to us the portions of these documents by July 21.
In his July 12 Order, Judge Sullivan wrote: "the court is persuaded by respondents' [DSRA's] arguments that further delay could cause substantial harm to respondents, who are pensioners in varying stages of retirement ..." Judge Sullivan wrote in one recent Order that we are entitled to this information because it is "not merely demonstrably relevant, but indeed substantially material to their [DSRA’s] case."
U.S. Treasury remains determined to block production of the remaining 63 documents, and has now taken the matter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. On December 8, 2017, the Appeals Court remanded the matter back to District Court Judge Sullivan, asking him to further explain the legal basis for his July 12 order. Judge Sullivan is now seeking input from attorneys for both U.S. Treasury and the Delphi Salaried Retirees Association.
Delphi Salaried Retirees Association's attorneys are also preparing to depose several former officials, and then file a Motion for Summary Judgment with U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow in Detroit. The motion we file will include all of the evidence we’ve gathered and state that there is no need for a jury trial because the preponderance of that evidence proves that the PBGC terminated our pension plan illegally. Therefore, we believe the judge will have sufficient grounds to order the PBGC to restore our full pensions – retroactively.
