Judge: St. Clare’s pension lawsuit case may continue

About 1,000 ex-hospital workers face halted or cut retirement checks

The lawsuit filed by dozens of former St. Clare’s Hospital employees over the hospital’s collapsed pension fund can continue, a judge ruled on Wednesday.

The ruling by Acting Justice Vincent Versaci in state Supreme Court in Schenectady County was a positive development for the pensioners, who are some of the roughly 1,000 hospital employees who were told in 2018 that their retirement funds had been either reduced or completely halted after the former hospital’s pension plan collapsed.

The plaintiffs allege the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese and St. Clare’s Corporation breached longstanding agreements to fulfill the pension and failed their fiduciary duty to their former employees. The diocese and St. Clare’s filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in January; that motion was denied by Versaci on Wednesday, after hearing oral arguments via teleconference in May.

The former Schenectady hospital closed more than a decade ago following a recommendation by the state’s Berger Commission as part of a push to reshuffle New York’s health care facilities. St. Clare’s operations were absorbed by Ellis Medicine. Taxpayers paid $58.7 million to cover transition costs at the time, including $28 million to cover the pension fund.

But state Sen. Jim Tedisco in February said he received an anonymous complaint that the fund shortfall was millions of more dollars.

The state attorney general’s office pledged an “as thorough as you can hope for” investigation into the pension fund’s collapse.