Patriot Coal Asks Bankruptcy Court to Terminate Retiree Health Benefits

On Thursday, Patriot Coal Corp filed a lawsuit against Peabody Energy Corp to ensure that Peabody does not use Patriot’s bankruptcy to evade Peabody’s own obligations to certain retirees. While Patriot has filed the lawsuit to ensure that Peabody, from which Patriot branched off in 2007, does not neglect its own obligations for health benefits towards retirees, in a statement late Thursday, Peabody pointed out that its contract with Patriot “appropriately states that, should Patriot’s benefit obligations decrease, our funding would proportionately be reduced. Patriot is taking the untenable position that our payments should continue in full in the future even if Patriot’s expenses are reduced.” Actually, what lay beneath the surface is that Patriot has already asked a bankruptcy court to terminate retiree health benefits for thousands of its unionized U.S. mine workers as part of its plan for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Read more at http://www.jdjournal.com/2013/03/16/patriot-coal-asks-bankruptcy-court-to-terminate-retiree-health-benefits/#