Northrop Grumman Escapes Pension Challenge, for Now

Northrop Grumman Corp. defeated a proposed class action by workers who accused the company of shortchanging their pension payments by overestimating the value of benefits they received from a different retirement plan.

The case against Northrop Grumman turns on the terms of the 30-year-old pension plan of a company Northrop acquired in 2002, a federal judge said. Because the lawsuit didn’t include sufficient information about the terms of the TRW Inc. pension plan—or whether the plan existed at all—the judge dismissed the claims against Northrop in an order made public Nov. 1 (Baleja v. Northrop Grumman Space & Mission Sys. Corp. Salaried Pension Plan, C.D. Cal., No. 5:17-cv-00235-JGB-SPx, order dismissing case 10/30/17