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Rosetto v. Pabst Brewing Co., Inc.

Despite silence in collective bargaining agreement regarding duration of health benefits provided to retired workers, and despite presumption against "vesting" of benefits, ambiguity in agreement precluded summary judgment in favor of employer in suit by retired workers for continuation of health benefits after expiration of bargaining agreement.

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The full case caption appears at the end of this opinion.

Posner, Chief Judge. This appeal from the grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant requires us to reconsider the much-litigated issue of when a right to health benefits that is granted to retired workers by a collective bargaining agreement (or an ERISA plan, but that is not this case) survives the termination of the agreement. See, e.g., Bidlack v. Wheelabrator Corp., 993 F.2d 603 (7th Cir. 1993) (en banc); Pabst Brewing Co. v. Corrao, 161 F.3d 434 (7th Cir. 1998); Frahm v. Equitable Life Assurance Society, 137 F.3d 955 (7th Cir. 1998); Diehl v. Twin Disc, Inc., 102 F.3d 301 (7th Cir. 1996); Murphy v. Keystone Steel & Wire Co., 61 F.3d 560 (7th Cir. 1995); Maurer v. Joy Technologies, Inc., No. 98-3964, 2000 WL 572453 (6th Cir. May 12, 2000); Int’l Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers v. Skinner Engine Co., 188 F.3d 130 (3d Cir. 1999); Joyce v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., 171 F.3d 130 (2d Cir. 1999); Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & Aerospace Workers v. Masonite Corp., 122 F.3d 228 (5th Cir. 1997). The issue must be decided as a matter of federal common law developed under the authority of section 301 of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. sec. 185, as interpreted in Textile Workers Union v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U.S. 448, 456-57 (1957); see also United Steelworkers of America v. Rawson, 495 U.S. 362, 368 (1990); In re Bluffton Casting Corp., 186 F.3d 857, 862 (7th Cir. 1999), or, in the case of an ERISA plan, under the authority of ERISA. E.g., Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U.S. 41, 55-56 (1987); Fox Valley & Vicinity Construction Workers Pension Fund v. Brown, 897 F.2d 275, 281 (7th Cir. 1990) (en banc); Trustmark Life Ins. Co. v. University of Chicago Hospitals, 207 F.3d 876, 881 (7th Cir. 2000).

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