United States Sixth Circuit

In an interlocutory appeal brought by Caterpillar from the district court's decision preliminarily enjoining the company to provide a subclass of 275 plaintiffs who retired from a Caterpillar subsidiary between 1992 and 1998 with "lifetime cost-free retiree health care," the decision is reversed as the statute of limitations bars the claims of this subclass because the the claim accrued at least by 1998 when the union and the company reached a new labor agreement that altered the healthcare benefits available to retirees.

Appellate Information

• Argued 10/15/2009
• Decided 06/22/2010
• Published 06/22/2010

Judges

• Before MARTIN, ROGERS and SUTTON, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Sixth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• ARGUED:Joseph J. Torres, Winston & Strawn LLP, Chicago, Illinois, for Appellant. Michael M. Mulder, Meites, Mulder, Mollica & Glink, Chicago, Illinois, for Appellees. ON BRIEF:Joseph J. Torres, C.R. Gangemi, Jr., Winston & Strawn LLP, Chicago, Illinois, Steffen N. Johnson, Winston & Strawn LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Michael M. Mulder, Paul W. Mollica, Meites, Mulder, Mollica & Glink, Chicago, Illinois, Elizabeth Alexander, Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstrin, Nashville, Tennessee, William T. Payne, John Stember, Pamina Ewing, Stember, Feinstein, Doyle & Payne, LLP, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jay E. Sushelsky, AARP Foundation Litigation, Washington, D.C., for Appellees.