Hilton Hotels Defeats Class Bid in Pension Vesting Challenge

Hilton Hotels retirees challenging how the company ran its pension plan lost their bid to certify a 220-person class when a Washington, D.C., federal judge said their proposed class definition was impermissibly “fail-safe.”

The proposed class includes only people with “vested rights to retirement benefits that have been denied,” but the question of whose rights have vested is central to the merits of the case, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled.

The “fail-safe” class can’t be certified because its parameters depend on the suit’s merits, Kollar-Kotelly said.

Kollar-Kotelly said that eight of ...