Breach of Contract Health-care Benefits.

Byline: Derek Hawkins

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Harold Stone, et al. v. Signode Industrial Group LLC, et al.

Case No.: 19-1601

Officials: SYKES, HAMILTON, and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Breach of Contract Health-care Benefits

Defendant Signode Industrial Group LLC assumed an obligation to pay health-care benefits to a group of retired steelworkers and their families. Signode then exercised its right to terminate the underlying benefits agreement. When it terminated the agreement, Signode also stopped providing the promised benefits to the retired steelworkers and their families, despite contractual language providing that benefits would not be "terminated notwithstanding the expiration" of the underlying agreement. This appeal presents a single question of contract interpretation: whether the agreement in question provided for vested benefits that would...