Signode Owes Retirees Lifetime Health Coverage, 7th Cir. Rules

Union-represented retirees from the shuttered Acme Packaging plant in Riverdale, Ill., are entitled to lifetime health coverage from Signode Industrial Group LLC, the Seventh Circuit ruled Nov. 20.

The retirees’ bargaining agreement with Signode’s predecessor “unambiguously provided retirees with vested lifetime health-care benefits,” the court said. The agreement said “as plainly as possible” that coverage would continue beyond the expiration of the agreement, the court said.

The court’s ruling turned on bargaining agreement language providing that the retirees “shall not have such coverage terminated or reduced (except as provided in this Program)...notwithstanding the expiration of this Agreement, ...