Federal judge rules trustee not responsible for losses in UAL employee stock plan News
Federal judge rules trustee not responsible for losses in UAL employee stock plan

[JURIST] A federal judge has ruled that State Street Bank and Trust Company [bank website] will not be held responsible for major losses in a United Airlines (UAL) [corporate website] employee stock-ownership plan. Over 70,000 United employees and retirees filed a class action lawsuit [JURIST report] in 2003 alleging that the trustee bank held on to UAL stock for too long, watching it rapidly deteriorate in value, despite knowing that the corporation was unstable. US District Court Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan disagreed, saying State Street did not know that United was nearing bankruptcy, so it could not have been expected to sell the UAL stock. A previous settlement with the employee stock-ownership plan committee allows participants to split $5.25 million, which is expected to give each employee and retiree only $20. The plaintiffs plan to appeal the ruling. AP has more.

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THIS DAY @ LAW

First US life insurance company incorporated

On January 11, 1759, America's first life insurance company was incorporated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers was established by Presbyterians to support the families of their ministers. In 1988, the company's name was changed to the Presbyterian Ministers' Fund. The company later became Covenant Life Insurance Company before being acquired by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company in 2002. Read a history of the Presbyterian Ministers' Fund from the Pennsylvania Historical Society.

Treaty ended Anglo-American claims, courts in China

On January 11, 1943, the United States and Great Britain relinquished by treaty their extraterritorial claims in China. This abandonment effectively ended the jurisdiction of the extraterritorial United States Court for China (established 1906) and the British Supreme Court in China. Read more about the United States Court for China, which one scholar has called "probably the strangest federal tribunal ever constituted by Congress," in a short online history of the US Ninth Circuit.