United Pilots Granted Cert. in Military Leave Benefits Class Action

A group of United Airlines and Continental Airlines pilots recently secured Class certification in a lawsuit which accuses the airlines of failing to provide military pilots with their benefits.

U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin granted certification to a Class of more than 4,000 current and former United and Continental pilots who were allegedly denied accrued sick and vacation time while they were on military leave.

In his certification of the Class, Judge Durkin noted that the pilots had clearly alleged that the policies of the airlines denied benefits to pilots on military leave which is a violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act.

Therefore, the judge said that the pilots could proceed without subclasses despite United and Continental Airlines having different collective bargaining agreements before merging.

“Defendants have not made any other argument that the terms of the collective bargaining agreements will be relevant to determining whether Defendants’ policies regarding accrual of sick time during military leave violated USERRA [Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act],” Judge Durkin wrote in his certification.

“Defendants also do not argue that reference to the collective bargaining agreements is necessary to define the members of the class; for instance, if they employed any pilots who were not covered by the collective bargaining agreements who should not be included in the class.”

Judge Durkin made slight changes to the Class period, setting the dates at Apr. 1, 2005 to the present. The court also certified a subclass of pilots who were denied their full pension payments due to their military leave.

The military pilot benefits class action was originally filed in August 2016 by plaintiff Michael Moss. Moss is a lieutenant colonel in the Marine reserves and was allegedly denied benefits while on military leave.

The pilots claim that, after United and Continental merged, some pilots were subject to different policies. Before the merge, United pilots earned sick time while on military leave but no vacation time. The opposite was true for Continental pilots – they earned no sick time but earned vacation time for up to 90 days.

When the companies merged, pilots allegedly continued to earn sick and vacation time based on the policies of their previous employers.

This allegedly continued until January 2014 when the merged companies adopted a new policy in which pilots on military leave earned no sick time but earned vacation time at a reduced rate for the first 90 days.

Moss estimates that the Class of pilots who had their vacation time improperly calculated exceeds 4,000 pilots. He also estimates that the sick time subclass exceeds 2,000 while the pension subclass exceeds 1,000.

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Moss and Class Members are represented by Gene J. Stonebarger and Crystal L. Matter of Stonebarger Law APC, Brian J. Lawler of Pilot Law PC and Joseph J. Siprut of Siprut PC.

The United Pilots Military Leave Benefits Class Action Lawsuit is Moss v. United Airlines Inc., et al., Case No. 1:16-­cv­-08496, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.