A 62-year-old Western States Pension Assistance Project (WSPAP) client, Mary, was preparing for retirement. She had earned a pension for her work at a Californian telephone company in the 1980s. Mary routinely checked her electronic statements to confirm that her monthly benefit would be around $250 per month.
However, before reaching the normal retirement age of 65, Mary was informed that she was not eligible for her pension, and that the online statements were all posted in error. Mary had worked long enough and knew she should have a benefit due, but the only lingering proof were the routine recent statements and screenshots from the plan itself.
The plan requested numerous records to demonstrate Mary’s eligibility for the pension and prove she hadn’t already received the benefits, but Mary had left the company in 1989 and didn’t maintain all of the requested records. Still, she knew that she had never received this pension, a benefit she earned and had tracked online for years.
The WSPAP attorney submitted several claims, requested appeal extensions and ultimately appealed several benefit denials–denials that were only based on the client’s lack of back-up documentation. The appeal letter argued that it is the plan’s fiduciary responsibility to maintain records, and that the records our client maintained and the plan’s own evidence was enough to prove a benefit was earned and never received.
The plan eventually offered our client a lump sum payout. After review and a calculation determination, Mary proposed a counteroffer that was 20% higher, which was ultimately approved. After two years of worry that she had forever lost her pension, Mary was very happy to receive the benefits she had earned.