Ogden-based Amalgamated Sugar Co. has settled a 7-year-old lawsuit by agreeing to pay 256 of its retired workers nearly $1.4 million in back pension benefits.
"I think the settlement is fair," said Utah federal Judge Bruce Jenkins. "I anticipate the distribution (of the pension money) will be made with great dispatch."But Claudia Berry, an attorney for the workers' union, the American Federation of Grain Millers International, said it is still searching for 20 of the retirees.
Under terms of the settlement, any shares unclaimed after five years will go to the federal treasury. They are worth as much as $20,000 to some of the retirees.
The suit was the second filed by Amalgamated retirees following the 1982 purchase of the company by Texas businessman Harold Simmons.
Amalgamated's pension funds contained about $11 million in surplus funds because of the stock market boom in the 1980s. The retirees charged Simmons tried to take as much as $8 million of the money they said belonged to them.
In the first suit, filed a dozen years ago by 157 non-union workers, Utah federal Judge Thomas Greene ruled in the employees' favor in 1992, awarding them about $2 million. The union workers immediately filed suit again, seeking a share of the pension fund surplus.
Amalgamated Sugar attorney Jean Reed Haynes said the settlement shares should be readily available to the retired workers or their heirs.
Former Amalgamated workers or their heirs eligible for a settlement share can contact the U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, case No. 1:92CV129J, or contact Berry at 801-532-7300.