High Court Declines to Order Retroactive Boosts in Pensions

The Supreme Court, rescuing employers from having to pay potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in pension benefits, today limited the application of rulings requiring equal treatment of men and women in the workplace.

By a 5-4 vote, the court said the state of Florida does not have to pay $43.6 million to male state workers who retired since 1972.

The justices limited the retroactive impact of a 1978 high court ruling that barred employers from requiring women to make higher contributions to pension plans because on average they live longer than men and thus receive greater retirement benefits.

The 1978 decision was greatly expanded by the high court in 1983 when it made it illegal for women to receive smaller monthly retirement pay than men solely because of their sex.

The 1983 ruling outlawed the practice of paying women smaller monthly benefit checks than men with identical work and earning histories.

Based on Actuarial Tables

The outlawed practice was based on actuarial tables--statistics showing women as a group live longer than men and therefore collected pensions for a longer time.

The court ruled that all retirement benefits derived from pension contributions made after Aug. 1, 1983, must be calculated in a sex-neutral manner--without regard to the sex of the beneficiary.

Both pension benefit rulings were based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banning sex discrimination in the workplace.

Until today, the court had not answered specifically the question whether the sex-neutral principles it established in the pension cases apply to a vast number of workers who have retired since 1964.

The justices used the Florida case today to bar retroactive application of its 1978 ruling.

The Florida state pension plan has been funded since 1975 solely by contributions made by state and and city employers.

Women Received More

Under one pension plan option, women received larger monthly benefits than men because they lived longer.

Several males sued Florida, claiming that the system discriminated against them on the basis of sex in violation of the 1964 civil rights law.

Florida amended the retirement system in 1983 to adopt wholly sex-neutral actuarial tables.

But lower courts ruled that male workers who retired after 1972 must be given additional benefits to raise them to the levels paid women. The process, called “topping up,” meant $43.6 million in additional benefits Florida was ordered to pay by lower courts.

The Supreme Court today threw out the lower court rulings.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the court, said “the imposition of retroactive liability on . . . employers that offered sex-based pension plans to their employees is inequitable.”

Sees Threat to Plans

Also, he said, imposing such extra costs on pension plans would threaten their existence and the rights of other workers to collect benefits.

In other action, the court:

--Said, in a decision that could carry some impact for the continuing Iran-Contra investigation, that grand jury targets may be forced to help prosecutors get at their accounts in foreign banks.

The court, by an 8-1 vote, ruled that prosecutors may compel the target of a grand jury investigation to provide written authorization so foreign banks will disclose records of the target’s accounts there.

--Upheld the way Texas courts administer that state’s death penalty law, dashing the hopes of more than 260 Death Row inmates.