FedEx, Howard University Sued Over Pension Plans’ Lifespan Data

FedEx Corp. and Howard University were hit with proposed class actions claiming they shortchange certain retirees’ pensions by calculating their benefits using outdated life expectancy data.

The lawsuits center on the mortality tables that FedEx and Howard use to calculate the benefits of workers who choose certain optional pension formats that pay post-death benefits to their surviving spouses.

By basing these calculations on inappropriate interest rates mortality tables from the 1960s and 1970s—when life expectancies were shorter—FedEx and Howard are improperly reducing certain workers’ benefits and violating a federal requirement that optional pension formats be “actuarially equivalent” to a traditional, ...