Ecolab Sued for Alleged Shortchanging of Married Worker Pensions

Ecolab Inc. was hit with a proposed class action saying it shortchanges the retirement benefits of certain married workers by calculating their pensions using 50-year-old lifespan data.

The lawsuit challenges how the Minnesota-based water and hygiene services company calculates retirement benefits for married workers who choose pensions that include post-death payments to their surviving spouses. These calculations allegedly use decades-old actuarial data that doesn’t reflect recent increases in lifespan, causing these retirees to have their benefits improperly reduced compared to workers who receive traditional, single-life pensions.

Plaintiff Scott Bennett, who retired from Ecolab after more than 20 years as an ...