On January 16, 2007, the Supreme Court denied cert. in Cooper v. IBM Personal Pension Plan, Case No. 06-760, a case challenging cash-balance pension plans (as they existed before the law was changed last August) as being discriminatory to older workers, leaving intact the Seventh Circuit's decision rejecting such claims on behalf of 250,000 present and former IBM employees.
Lyle Denniston has this post at Scotusblog on the Court's action in Cooper. We will follow up in the near future with a more comprehensive summary of the current status of actions in the Sixth Circuit and other circuits around the country claiming that cash-balance pension plans violate the age discrimination prohibitions of ERISA. Please stay tuned.