Bearden v. E.I. Du Pont De Nemours and Co., No. 18-14345 (11th Cir. 2019)
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At issue was the word "retirement" in the Award Terms of stock options granted to plaintiff by his employer E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. Under the terms of the award, an employee who leaves the company "due to retirement" keeps the original expiration date of his stock options, but an employee who leaves for other reasons must exercise his stock options by his last day of employment.
Applying Delaware law, the Eleventh Circuit held that an employee is eligible for retirement within the meaning of the Award Terms only upon satisfying both the age and years-of-service requirement. Therefore, plaintiff's 10 years of service with DuPont fell short of the years-of-service requirements within Section IV of the Pension Plan. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to DuPont.
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