Justia ERISA Opinion Summaries

Title IV of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) creates an insurance program to protect employees’ pension benefits. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)—a wholly-owned corporation of the U.S. government—is charged with administering the pension-insurance program. PBGC terminated the “Salaried Plan,” a defined-benefit plan sponsored by Delphi by an agreement between PBGC and Delphi pursuant to 29 U.S.C. 1342(c). Delphi had filed a voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition and had stopped making contributions to the plan. The district court rejected challenges by retirees affected by the termination.The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Subsection 1342(c) permits termination of distressed pension plans by agreement between PBGC and the plan administrator without court adjudication. Rejecting a due process argument, the court stated that the retirees have not demonstrated that they have a property interest in the full amount of their vested, but unfunded, pension benefits. PBGC’s decision to terminate the Salaried Plan was not arbitrary and capricious. View "Black v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp." on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's order requiring the Meadowvale Dairy Employee Benefit Plan to pay benefits and attorney's fees to Avera under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Avera alleged that the benefits at issue were due to a former employee of Meadowvale who received care at a hospital operated by Avera.The court held that, although the beneficiary assigned any and all causes of action to Avera, he never had a cause of action against the Plan. Therefore, Avera may not proceed against the Plan under ERISA as an assignee of a beneficiary or otherwise. In this case, after Meadowvale rescinded the beneficiary's coverage under the Plan, neither the employee nor an authorized representative of his exhausted internal remedies to challenge the decision. View "McKennan v. Meadowvale Dairy Employee Benefit Plan" on Justia Law

Bell employees participated in a benefit plan, completely funded by contributions from the members of about 69 unions. The plan is administered by a Board of Trustees, governed by Trust Indenture documents that provide that plan members must contribute a fixed amount unless a member’s union has set a different contribution amount. In 2008, Bell’s union voted to increase its members’ contributions from 6% to 8% of their weekly wages. In 2014, the Trustees revealed that the plan’s financial health was deteriorating. Bell employees unsuccessfully petitioned the union to reduce their compelled-contribution rate. In 2016, Bell's collective-bargaining contract expired. During negotiations, the employees again unsuccessfully requested that the union reduce their required contribution rate. Other members of the union, working for a different employer, were either contributing at lower rates or not contributing; they were originally part of a different union that did not participate in the plan. Contract re-negotiations were unsuccessful. The employees lost certain benefits that are available only to active contributors to the plan.The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a suit under 29 U.S.C. 1104(a)(1)(D). The Trustees’ action, interpretation of the Trust Indenture, was not a breach of fiduciary duty. The Indenture can be reasonably interpreted as permitting different segments within a union to contribute to the plan at different levels. Even if the Union controlled the amount of revenue coming into the plan, it did not act as fiduciary but as a settlor. View "Bator v. District Council 4, Graphic Communications Conference" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order granting summary judgment in favor of defendants in an action under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), alleging that a fiduciary breached its duty to make accurate representations to a beneficiary.The panel first held that defendants did not waive their statute of limitations affirmative defense. The panel applied Intel Corp. Inv. Policy Committee v. Sulyma, 140 S. Ct. 768 (2020), which held that "actual knowledge" requires more than merely a possible inference from ambiguous circumstances, but rather knowledge that is actual. The panel held that the record establishes that the beneficiary had actual knowledge of the alleged breach and failed to bring suit within the three-year statute of limitations prescribed under ERISA. In this case, the district court correctly determined that the beneficiary had actual knowledge of the alleged misrepresentation when he received a letter from defendants regarding the bridging of service under the retirement plan. Therefore, the beneficiary's claim is time-barred. Furthermore, there is no exception for fraudulent concealment that triggers the six-year statute of limitations here. Finally, the panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the beneficiary's post-judgment motion for reconsideration. View "Guenther v. Lockheed Martin Corp." on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit vacated the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the plan beneficiary in an action arising under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The court held that the district court erred in reviewing Reliance's denial of long-term disability benefits de novo rather than for an abuse of discretion. The court explained that the administrator's decisional delay on appeal does not in and of itself trigger de novo review. Rather, under circuit law, de novo review is not triggered in this context unless the administrator wholly fails "to act on an appeal" and that failure "raises serious doubts about the result reached by the plan administrator" in its initial denial. The court remanded for the district court to review Reliance's benefits decision for an abuse of discretion. View "McIntyre v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiff and 22 other employees filed suit under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), challenging the plan administrator's denial of Special Early Retirement (SER) benefits. Plaintiffs claim that they are entitled to SER benefits because the sale of the parent company's interests to another company effected either a layoff or a permanent plant shutdown. Before and after the sale, the factory remained continuously operational and the employees remained employed in their same jobs.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of the ERISA benefits because plaintiffs were neither laid off nor terminated by a permanent plant shutdown and thus they were not entitled to SER benefits under the language of the plan. The court also held that plaintiffs cannot make out a claim for equitable relief because their alternative theory arises form the same factual circumstances as their first. View "Hill v. Employee Benefits Administrative Committee of Mueller Group LLC" on Justia Law

29 U.S.C. 1132(a)(3) does not authorize an award of attorney's fees incurred during the administrative phase of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) claims process. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of an ERISA action brought by plaintiff against MetLife. The district court granted MetLife's motion to dismiss the complaint, agreeing with MetLife that attorney's fees awards are not other appropriate equitable relief under section 1132(a)(3).In Cann v. Carpenters' Pension Trust Fund for Northern California, 989 F.3d 313 (9th Cir. 1993), the panel held that attorney's fees incurred in administrative proceedings are not recoverable under section 1132(g), ERISA's express fee-shifting provision. The panel was obligated to read section 1132(a)(3) in conjunction with section 1132(g). Under the expressio unius canon, section 1132(g)'s silence as to fees incurred in an administrative proceeding gives rise to the inference that section 1132(a)(3) does not authorize such fees. View "Castillo v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, participants in the Gannett Co. 401(k) Savings Plan, filed suit alleging that defendants breached their fiduciary duties of prudence and diversification under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Plaintiffs contend that defendants ignored an imprudent single-stock fund in the Plan for several years, resulting in millions of dollars in losses.The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's complaint for failure to state a claim, holding that plaintiffs plausibly alleged that a fiduciary breached a duty, causing a loss to the employee benefit plan. In this case, plaintiffs alleged that defendants breached their duty of prudence by allegedly failing to monitor the continuing prudence of holding a single-stock fund; because defendants did not monitor the merits of the fund, they did not uncover that it was an imprudent fund; defendants' failure to discover the imprudence led to the failure to divest the fund; and, when the price of the stock in the fund went down, the Plan suffered a loss. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Quatrone v. Gannett Company, Inc." on Justia Law

PCMA filed suit claiming that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (Medicare Part D), preempt two sections of the North Dakota Century Code regulating the relationship between pharmacies, pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs), and other third parties that finance personal health services. The district court determined that only one provision in the legislation was preempted by Medicare Part D and entered judgment in favor of North Dakota on the remainder of PCMA's claims.The Eighth Circuit held that it need not address the "connection with" element of the analysis because the legislation is preempted due to its impermissible "reference to" ERISA plans. In this case, the legislation is preempted because its references to "third-party payers" and "plan sponsors" impermissibly relate to ERISA benefit plans. Therefore, the court held that the North Dakota legislation is preempted because it "relates to" ERISA plans "by regulating the conduct of PBMs administering or managing pharmacy benefits." Finally, the court held that North Dakota waived its savings clause argument. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. View "Pharmaceutical Care Management Ass'n v. Tufte" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, participants in Target's employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), filed suit against Target and its senior executives, alleging violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the claims, holding that plaintiffs failed to show that the fiduciaries breached their duty of prudence. In regard to plaintiffs' proposed alternative actions, the court held that Target could not have implemented a purchase freeze without inevitable disclosure and a reasonably prudent fiduciary could still believe disclosure was the more dangerous route than the route taken. The court also held that plaintiffs failed to show that the fiduciaries violated the duty of loyalty in administering the plan because of their potential conflicts where plaintiffs point to nothing more than the tension inherent in the fiduciaries' dual roles as ERISA fiduciaries and Target officers. Plaintiffs also failed to show that the fiduciaries breached the duty of loyalty by making misleading statements to Plan participants because they failed to allege that the fiduciaries knew they were making untruthful statements in their disclosures and to specify which statements were untrue. Finally, plaintiffs' claim that Target's CEOs breached their duty to monitor the other ERISA fiduciaries cannot survive without an underlying breach. View "Dormani v. Target Corp." on Justia Law