American Airlines Looks to Sink Retiree’s Pension Math Challenge

A lawsuit challenging how American Airlines Inc. calculates pensions for certain married workers is a flawed attempt to override plan terms and rewrite federal law, the airline said in a motion to dismiss.

The plaintiff, a retiree seeking to represent a proposed class, admits that his pension benefits were correctly calculated according to the terms of his retirement plan, American said in the Tuesday court filing. His lawsuit is an attempt to rewrite the Employee Retirement Income Security Act by “injecting requirements into the statute that Congress declined to include—despite specifically adding them elsewhere,” American said.

Thomas Parisi’s lawsuit ...