Lockheed Martin retirement plan case gets trial date

A long-fought legal battle between Lockheed Martin Corp. and a group of its retirement plan participants will finally go to trial in December after the plaintiffs were granted class action status. The group of retirement plan participants In Anthony Abbott et al. v. Lockheed Martin Corp. and Lockheed Martin Investment Management Co. have been feuding with the defense contractor for eight years. At the heart of the lawsuit, which was filed in 2006, retirement plan participants at Lockheed Martin claim that the firm breached its fiduciary duty to its participants and their beneficiaries in a variety of ways, including assessing fees that were “unreasonably” high. Last week, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois granted class action status to plaintiffs who allege that Lockheed imprudently chose investments in its “purportedly safe and stable” stable-value fund. The court also granted the plaintiffs' motion to set a status conference and trial. The former will take place on Sept. 2, while the latter is set for Dec. 1. The district court denied Lockheed's motion for leave to file for partial summary, as well as a plaintiffs' renewed motion to certify a group of employees who were in company stock funds. Notably, U.S. District Judge Michael J. Reagan rebuffed Lockheed's search for a summary judgment, noting that “another round of summary judgment would not save judicial resources,” according to the Aug. 1 memorandum and order. “Here, the parties have already expended significant resources, both in this court and two trips to the Court of Appeals,” Mr. Reagan wrote. Much of the delay around the legal proceedings goes back to disagreements over class certification and the lengthy appeals process, noted Jerome Schlichter of Schlichter Bogard & Denton, the law firm representing the plaintiffs. “There were two appeals over class certification, which was intensely fought,” he said. “There were multiple appeals that each had taken a couple of years, but now there are no more obstacles and there will no longer be delays.” Last December, the case reached the Supreme Court, which let stand a decision in the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that allows the participants to proceed with a class action against the firm. A call to Lockheed Martin spokeswoman Donna Savarese was not returned.