DAVENPORT - The benefits-related lawsuit filed by Deere & Co. retirees against their former employer is to be heard at a full bench trial, a federal judge has ruled.

Unless a settlement is reached, trial is set for Sept. 21 at U.S. District Court, Davenport. It is scheduled for two weeks.

The plaintiffs and defendants had requested summary judgment or dismissal, requests which Charles Wolle rejected.

"After completing my review of the very large summary judgment record and even reading twice the entire transcript of the lengthy oral arguments of counsel … I am firmly of the view that the briefs and papers resisting summary judgment are more persuasive than those in support," Wolle wrote.

"The parties have battled extensively about whether each side's statement of material facts … have fact or fiction. Genuine fact issues identified in the briefs must be decided after the bench trial, not before it begins."

The lawsuit, filed last fall in U.S. District Court, stems from a new benefits plan that Deere rolled out in 2007. It affected about 5,000 of Deere's flex retirees, most of whom had been salaried employees.

The suit was filed on behalf of the Flex Retirees Organization, or FRO, a group that formed after the new benefits plan was introduced. While it names individual retirees as plaintiffs, it was approved in December for class action status by Wolle.

At a hearing regarding the motions for summary judgment, plaintiffs' attorney Susan Martin argued that Deere violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, and terms of the plans. She offered evidence that retirees were told for years that they would take "all their benefits" into retirement and coverage would continue for the remainder of their lives.

But Sari Alamuddin, a Chicago attorney representing Deere, said the company always reserved the right to amend, modify, suspend or terminate its benefits. "Deere reviewed its health benefits on an annual basis and regularly made changes," he said.