Five retired Major League Baseball umpires, including record-holding Joe West, filed a federal lawsuit Sept. 29 in New York alleging their pension benefits were miscalculated and that they are owed more than $5 million, lanacion.com.ar reported. The suit names the American Leagues and National Leagues of Professional Baseball Clubs Retirement Income Plan for Umpires and its retirement committee as defendants.
West, Tom Hallion, Gerry Davis, Larry Vanover and Jerry Layne contend their benefits were not correctly calculated under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. Their attorney, Paul B. Holmes, said Thursday the amount owed the five exceeds $5 million.
The umpires filed as individuals. The Major League Baseball Umpires Association is not a party to the case.
Joe West Alleges ‘Sue Us’ Comment from MLB Counsel
West, who worked a record 5,460 regular-season games from 1976 to 2021, said he raised the benefit calculation issue with the retirement committee and was offered a relatively small sum. West said MLB senior vice president and chief employment counsel Steven Gonzalez told him, “If you don’t like the number, sue us.”
“Does Steve Gonzalez not know my history with dealing with lawsuits?” West said.
West won $500,000 in damages in 2021 in a defamation suit against former All-Star catcher Paul Lo Duca.
Careers Spanning Four Decades End in Litigation
The five umpires retired across four seasons: West and Davis after the 2021 season, Hallion after 2022, and Layne and Vanover at the end of 2024. Their complaint alleges the retirement plan shorted them on payments owed for careers that spanned decades.
MLB declined comment Wednesday, citing the pending lawsuit.
Settlement Talks Preceded the Filing
Holmes said the umpires exhausted the plan’s internal process and engaged in settlement talks before filing, and were willing to accept less than 100% of what they believed they were entitled to in order to avoid litigation.
“In some of the issues you could argue it both ways, but in a couple of the issues it was pretty clear that they were just shorting the umpires,” Holmes said. “MLB’s offers were not very competitive.”
Holmes said the union opted to stay out of the case because “it’s not a big union and they’re not pension experts.”
Pretrial Conference Set for December 11
U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams scheduled a pretrial conference for Dec. 11 in the case pending in federal court in New York. The lawsuit was first reported by USA Today.
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