Mack Trucks, Volvo to pay $525M to settle suit
Headline Legal News
Mack Trucks Inc. and its parent, AB Volvo, will pay $525 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by more than 9,300 retirees of the North Carolina truck maker after they challenged potential reductions to their lifetime health benefits.
The Legal Intelligencer reported Tuesday that Senior U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick gave preliminary approval of the settlement. A hearing is Sept. 7 to decide if the settlement is fair and reasonable.
The suit was filed in Michigan after Mack sought a ruling that lifetime benefits of its retirees were not vested and could be modified or eliminated. Both cases were consolidated in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Mack reached an agreement with the UAW in May of 2009 on a voluntary employees beneficiary association, or VEBA, that would have the union oversee retirees' health benefits. Mack and Volvo agreed to fund it with $525 million, paid in five annual installments.
Mack said it expects the final approval of the VEBA in September.
The company also reported that deliveries nearly doubled in April from a year earlier with 1,608 trucks delivered from the 810 it recorded in April 2010, an increase of 99 percent.
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Does a car or truck accident count as a work injury?
If an employee is injured in a car crash while on the job, they are eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits. “On the job” injuries are not limited to accidents and injuries that happen inside the workplace, they may also include injuries suffered away from an employee’s place of work while performing a job-related task, such as making a delivery or traveling to a client meeting.
Regular commutes to and from work don’t usually count. If you get into an accident on your way in on a regular workday, it’s probably not considered a work injury for the purposes of workers’ compensation.
If you drive around as part of your job, an injury on the road or loading/unloading accident is likely a work injury. If you don’t typically drive around for work but are required to drive for the benefit of your employer, that would be a work injury in many cases.
If you are out of town for work, pretty much any driving would count as work related. For traveling employees, any accidents or injuries that happen on a work trip, even while not technically working, can be considered a work injury. The reason is because you wouldn’t be in that town in the first place, had you not been on a work trip.
Workers’ compensation claims for truck drivers, traveling employees and work-related injuries that occur away from the job site can be challenging and complex. At Krol, Bongiorno & Given, we understand that many families depend on the income of an injured worker, and we are proud of our record protecting the injured and disabled. We have handled well over 30,000 claims for injured workers throughout the state of Illinois.