The NFLPA’s New Math
My Disability Attorney, John Hogan, received a letter dated June 19, 2008 from Paul Scott, the Benefits Coordinator from the NFLPA’s Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Players Retirement Plan. The letter states that the Committee qualified me to receive Inactive Total & Permanent (T&P) Disability Benefits (which is supposed to amount to $40,000 a year – or $3,333.33 a month – according to the NFLPA’s published retirement benefits program) retroactive to April 1, 2008 (?!!). My request for Football Degenerative Benefits have been tabled and it is clear that all my documentation was not considered. They only looked at my favorable Social Security award in 2004 and disregarded the fact that I was wrongly denied in 1995.
Yet, Paul Scott’s letter states that my monthly benefit will be $2,980.60 with a retroactive payment of $7,123.41 to cover April, May and June which works out to $2,374.47 a month (?!!). Got that? And since they have a standing order not to take any deductions, 3 months should actually amount to $10,000, NOT $7,123.41! Sheesh!
Oh wait! They were going to offset my T&P of $3,333.33 by what they pay me as an “early retirement pension” of $606.13 a month, leaving me with a $2,727.20 in T&P Benefits, But they’ve calculated their payment to me of $2,374.47 a month, leaving me short $352.73 each month for a grand total of $4,232.76 that I’ll be short each year, Somewhere along the way, the math got trashed and I lost another 10% somewhere to the Gene Upshaw Retirement Fund.
(As always, you can click on each of the document images to enlarge them for easy viewing.)
And while we’re at it, retroactive to April 2008? They not only haven’t granted me full disability benefits of $110,000 a year, but instead decided to slot me into a $40,000 a year Inactive T&P Benefit and then added further insult to injury by shortchanging the monthly benefit by a total of $958.86 a month partly by deducting my paltry monthly pension and other deductions (so that’s $11,506 a year short even according to their own plan numbers). And there’s more: My Social Security started back in July 2004, not April 2008 (you can see my documentation by clicking HERE).
If you remember reading that Washington Post article by Michael Leahy on SuperBowl Sunday (read our post by clicking HERE). In fact, here’s a clip from the piece with Gene Upshaw’s now-famous ‘It’s the law‘ quote. But then his own attorney corrects him and goes further in stating that they could in fact “grant both a pension and a right to a disability payment.”
In fact, further on in the same article, Upshaw’s attorney, Lanny Davis, even felt that I should be eligible for the $110,000 Disability Benefit:
So it now looks like Gene Upshaw’s organization, the NFLPA, not only knows the law but they also seem to be following the New Math as well! I can only hope there are some Math geniuses out there who can help us sort out this NFLPA New Math.
If there are any other of you out there who have applied and received something, let us know so we can all compare notes. Drop us a note to let us know if you’ve:
- Filed (or plan to file) your application;
- Had your application approved (and how much you’re going to receive);
- Had your application declined.
If we all compare notes on our cases, perhaps we can ensure that everyone is treated equally and consistently under the rules.