Honeywell Gets Mixed Results in Retiree Health-Care Benefit Row

Honeywell International Inc. scored a partial victory when a federal judge in Michigan held that a group of union workers who retired before 2003 weren’t entitled to lifetime health-care benefits.

The retirees weren’t vested with lifetime health-care benefits because the collective bargaining agreements at issue included a durational clause that terminated all provisions of the contract on a specific date, Chief Judge Denise Page Hood of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan held March 29.

Page relied on at least five recent opinions by the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the ...