Howard Hughes Must Pay $274K to Former Golf Club Executive

Howard Hughes Management Co. LLC must pay $273,970 in severance benefits and attorneys’ fees to a former golf club executive who was involuntarily terminated in 2014 (Langley v. Howard Hughes Mgmt. Co., 2017 BL 184634, 5th Cir., 16-20724, unpublished 6/1/17).

The severance plan’s employee eligibility exclusion didn’t bar the former executive—an ordinary at-will employee compensated at the time of termination by salary and bonus—from receiving severance benefits, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held June 1. The plan administrator’s interpretation that the employee was excluded was an abuse of discretion because it directly contradicted the ...