By Mike Boyer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

LOVELAND - Formica Corp. retirees, seeing their pensions cut as much as $150 a month because of what the company says were miscalculations, have agreed to hire a Cincinnati law firm.

In both a voice vote and show of hands, about 200 retirees who met Monday at a church agreed to retain the firm of Mezibov & Jenkins to pursue a class-action lawsuit. Their goal: Stop the Evendale laminate maker from cutting their pension checks.

The retirees, many of whom said they were given incentives to leave their jobs early, are irate over what they say is a broken promise. Formica is emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.

"They paid us to leave, and now they want their money back," said Eddie Arnold, 68, of Maineville, who retired eight years ago and says his benefit is being cut by $100 a month.

Last month, Formica notified the retirees that an auditor it hired found that 440 of the 624 retirees in its defined-benefit pension plan from 1985 to 1998 were receiving incorrect payments. The company said about 295 were receiving overpayments and 145 were being underpaid. The company said the overpayments totaled $1 million and the underpayments $500,000.

Besides recalculating the monthly payments starting last month, the company said it is required by law to recover overpayments, which in some cases amount to thousands of dollars, although how that will be handled is unclear.

Marc Mezibov, a partner in the law firm, told retirees last week that if hired, he would seek a temporary restraining order to prevent the company from reducing pension checks while a class-action suit is pursued. A lawsuit also could pursue damages against the company for costs involved, he said.

Frank Ramsey, chairman of the retirees group, said a legal fight could take up to two years. But he told the group that if at least 200 participate, the law firm's retainer would cost each person about $100 annually.

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E-mail mboyer@enquirer.com