Occidental Petroleum Must Defend Severance Denials

Occidental Petroleum Corp. must defend a lawsuit accusing it of wrongfully denying severance benefits to two employees who allegedly weren’t eligible to participate in the company’s separation plan (Cooper v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., 2017 BL 146075, N.D. Okla., 4:16-cv-00687, 5/1/17).

The former employees have a sufficient claim to confer them standing to challenge Occidental’s denial of benefits and thus are participants under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act entitled to seek review of their benefit denial, Judge Terence Kern of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma held May 1.

At issue in the case ...