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May 16, 2003

DISTRIBUTION PACKAGES MAILED TO CLASS MEMBERS

The government has now paid over $178 million in trust for the benefit of the class. On April 29, 2003, Distribution Packages were mailed to the home addresses of 212,000-plus Class Members. These packages contain information on the amounts the individual Class Member is owed. (Some Class Members are owed no money because they already received the full payment to which they were entitled, and therefore were never adversely affected by the illegal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) regulation challenged in this lawsuit.) In addition, the packages contain the Employee Status Information upon which the calculation of the amount owed was based. Packages have also been mailed to Survivor Annuitants of deceased Class Members explaining their rights under the settlement, and Class Membership Claim Forms were sent to those individuals not in our database of Class Members who have written to the Settlement Administrator stating that they meet the class definition and should be covered by this settlement. Instructions for Class Members, Survivor Annuitants of deceased Class Members, other survivors of deceased Class Members, and individuals not in the database who think they are Class Members are provided in the mailing and are summarized below. If you are in one of these groups and do not receive a mailing by May 15, please contact the Settlement Administrator at (800) 750-3406.

  1. Class Members

    Class Members should review the information contained in their Distribution Packages. In reviewing this information, note that now is the time to take action to claim your money. All you have to do to claim your money is sign and return the yellow "Claim Form" included in your package. The sooner you submit your form the better. Any Claim Form not postmarked by October 27, 2003 will be considered to be untimely.

    The information used to calculate your back pay amount is derived from a reliable OPM database. There may, however, be a limited number of errors in the data. If the data used to calculate your back pay amount is erroneous, you may consider filing a challenge, instead of claiming your payment. The instructions for filing a challenge are contained in the Distribution Package. Basically, challenges may only be pursued to correct Employee Status Information that is in error. You will have to identify on the purple "Challenge Form" included in your package any Employee Status Information that is erroneous, provide the corrected data, submit appropriate official government documentation (such as an SF-50 for the relevant time period) to support your claim, and sign an oath that the information you are providing is correct. All challenges must also be postmarked by October 27, 2003. Note that you may not submit both a yellow claim form and a purple challenge form.

    RISKS OF FILING A CHALLENGE: If you are considering filing a challenge, please take into account the following risks of that course of action:

    • Only those Class Members who claim their money, rather than file a challenge, will be paid at the first distribution to the class, expected to occur by the end of this year. If you file a challenge, you will not receive any payment until all challenges are resolved, which could be a few years later.
    • In addition, if you file a challenge you run the risk that the actual amount you collect will be less than the amount noted in your Distribution Package. That is because changes in your Employee Status Information could mean that you were actually paid an amount closer to that to which you were entitled. For example, if the information we have indicates that you were a GS-4 employee, but you establish that you were actually a GS-5 employee, the amount of back pay you are owed may be less, because the salary you received at the GS-5 level may have been closer to what you should have received.
    • Finally, if you file a challenge and are unsuccessful, you will not be entitled to collect interest for the period that your payment was delayed, while the unsuccessful challenge was pending.

    The Settlement Administrator is not authorized to provide advice on whether to file a challenge and will not be able to inform you whether a successful challenge would result in a change to the amount you are owed. Please refrain from calling the toll free number with these questions. If you have questions about how to complete your claim form or challenge form, or any other questions about the distribution process, please check the Q&A section of this web site before calling the toll free number.

  2. Survivors Annuitants of Deceased Class Members

    Spouses of deceased Class Members officially designated in OPM's records as "Survivor Annuitants" will also be receiving a Distribution Package in the mail. As the Survivor Annuitant , you are not automatically entitled to recover all, or any part of, any amounts that may be owed the deceased Class Member. The Settlement Adjudicator will have to decide whether you are the legal "Successor-in-Interest" of the Class Member, and therefore entitled to recover any amount owed to him or her. If you are the Survivor Annuitant and wish to claim the money owed the Class Member, just submit the green "Survivor Annuitant Claim Form," along with the Class Member's death certificate. Make sure the form is postmarked no later than October 27, 2003, or else it will be considered untimely.

    The Employee Status Information used to calculate payments for deceased Class Members is derived from the same reliable OPM database from which all Class Member information has been derived. If, however, you happen to locate an error in the Employee Status Information used to calculate the Class Member's back pay amount, you may consider filing a challenge, instead of submitting the green claim form. The instructions for filing a challenge are contained in the Distribution Package. Basically, challenges may only be pursued to correct Employee Status Information that is in error. You will have to identify on the blue "Challenge Form" included in your package any Employee Status Information that is erroneous, provide the corrected data, submit appropriate official government documentation (such as an SF-50 for the relevant time period) to support your claim and the Class Member's death certificate, and sign an oath that the information you are providing is correct. All challenges must also be postmarked by October 27, 2004. Note that you may not submit both a green claim form and a blue challenge form.

    If you are considering filing a challenge, please take into account the following risks of that course of action:

    • If you file a challenge you run the risk that the actual amount you may be entitled to correct will be less than the amount noted in your distribution package. That is because changes in the Class Member's Employee Status Information could mean that he or she was actually paid an amount closer to that to which he or she was entitled. For example, if the information we have indicates that the Class Member was a GS-4 employee, but you establish that he or she was actually a GS-5 employee, the amount of back pay owed the Class Member may be less, because the salary he or she received at the GS-5 level may have been closer to what he or she should have received.
    • If you file a challenge and are unsuccessful, you will not be entitled to collect interest for the period that any payment owed you was delayed, while the unsuccessful challenge was pending.

    The Settlement Administrator is not authorized to provide advice on whether to file a challenge and will not be able to inform you whether a successful challenge would result in a change to the amount owed the Class Member. Please refrain from calling the toll free number with these questions. If you have questions about how to complete your claim form or challenge form, or any other questions about the distribution process, please check the Q&A section of this web site before calling the toll free number.

  3. Other Survivors of Deceased Class Members

    If you are a Survivor of a deceased Class Member other than a Survivor Spouse Annuitant, you will not automatically be sent a Distribution Package. You may, however, still be entitled to collect some or all of the amounts owed the deceased Class Member.

    Survivors of deceased Class Members not designated as Survivor Spouse Annuitants must submit a "Potential Successor-in-Interest Form" to the Settlement Administrator. If you would like to request that a form be sent to you, please mail a letter with your name, address, and social security number to the Settlement Administrator, P.O. Box 4068, Portland, OR 97208-4068. Instructions for completing the form will be included. Note that in addition to completing the form, you will need to provide the death certificate of the deceased Class Member and have the form notarized.

    Please submit your request for a Potential Successor-in-Interest Form to the Settlement Administrator as soon as possible. Only those individuals whose Potential Successor-in-Interest Forms are postmarked by October 27, 2003, will have an opportunity to consider challenging the Class Member's Employee Status Information, upon which the payment calculations are based. Individuals with forms postmarked after October 27, 2003, will not have this right.

  4. Individuals Not in the Database of Class Members

    Some individuals not in the database of Class Members may believe they are Class Members (that is, they were employed by the federal government and received special salary rates under Title V of the U.S. Code at some time from October 1, 1981 through September 30, 1988). Those in this group who have already written to the Settlement Administrator have been mailed "Class Membership Claim Forms." In order to make a claim for class membership, you must complete this form, provide appropriate official government documentation to support your claim of class membership, and sign an oath attesting to the truthfulness of your statements. More detailed instructions will be sent to you along with the form. If you do not receive a Class Membership Claim Form by May 15, 2003, and you meet the criteria for being a Class Member, you may request that a form be sent to you by mailing a letter with your name, address, and social security number to the Settlement Administrator, P.O. Box 4068, Portland, OR 97208-4068.

    All claims for class membership must be postmarked no later than October 27, 2003. Any claim postmarked after that date will be untimely and will not be considered.

    All information that is available now appears on this website. Please do not call the court about this case. Please continue to check this website regularly for updates.

April 25, 2002

COURT CONSIDERING PARTIES' JOINT REQUEST FOR PRELIMINARY APPROVAL

The parties filed their settlement papers with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on March 15, 2002. Along with those papers, the parties submitted a joint request that the court grant preliminary approval to the settlement. Once preliminary approval is granted, notice of the terms of the settlement can be sent to the class. The parties have had several conferences with the court. The court is currently considering the parties' request for preliminary approval.

In the meantime, please do not call the court about the case. Phone calls to the court are inappropriate.

Please refer to the information provided in the Q & A section for details about the case. There is nothing for class members to do at this time to protect their rights under the settlement.

All information that is available now appears on this web page. We cannot tell you at this time how much individual class members will be eligible to receive. Calculations of payment amounts for individual class members cannot occur until after final court approval of the settlement.

This web page will be updated when there is new information to report. Please continue to log on to this web page to follow the progress of the case. Instructions for class members to follow to exercise their rights under the settlement will be posted here as they become available.

 

January 7, 2002

*** SETTLEMENT REACHED ***

Counsel for the plantiffs and the federal government have reached a settlement in the so-called "special rates case." that will result in the payment of $173,510,566.02 to the class. NTEU v. James, No. 83-0279 (D.D.C.) (formerly "NTEU v. Lachance").

This class action concerns an invalid rule issued by the United States Office of Personnel Management ("OPM") that resulted in the improper calculation of pay increases due federal employees paid "special rates" during fiscal years 1982 through 1988 (or, in other words, from October 1, 1981 through September 30, 1988).

On January 3, 2002, the parties entered a Settlement Agreement providing that the United States will pay $173,510,566.02 to resolve its liability to the class.

The United States will pay additional interest above this amount if final court approval of the settlement occurs after August 31, 2002.

Amounts due to class members and other individuals who are covered by the settlement will be calculated pursuant to a formula negotiated by the parties. The formula is based on a court-ordered rule called the "alignment rule."

The settlement reached between the parties does not become final until the court has ruled that it is fair and reasonable. The first step in this process is for the parties to ask the court to preliminarily approve the settlement. Once the court grants "preliminary approval" to the settlement, notices containing more information about the settlement will be published and mailed to class members, and the settlement documents will be made available on this Web site.

In the meantime, please refer to the information provided in the Q&A section for more details about the case.

No additional information is available at this time. For example, calculations of payment amounts which individual class members will be eligible to receive cannot occur until after final court approval of the settlement.

Please continue to log on to this web page to follow the progress of the case. Instructions for class members to follow to exercise their rights under the settlement will be posted here as they become available.