Aparicio v. General Motors Corp., 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 12299 (9^th Cir. June 1, 2000) (unpublished)-This court found that three former employees of GM failed to make an ERISA § 510 claim, since they were unable to show that the company offered a "pretextual" reason for implementing an "accept, quit or retire" policy before a sale of a division of the company. The Hughes/Delco division argued that the policy was an "ad hoc" policy (specifically allowed for in the GM Plan) intended to "produce a viable workforce in connection with the Litton sale."

Those Litton re-hired (200 of the 270 former employees), Litton offered the same salary and at the same location. (The opinion is silent as to whether these employees accepted a change in benefits).  The plaintiffs rejected Litton's new terms, and Litton did not hire them. The fact that they were then listed as "voluntary quits" rather than "layoffs" was not an attempt to avoid paying benefits, this court concluded, since the same would have occurred, based on Plan terms, if they had rejected a reassignment to another GM location.