Alice Carr v. Jefferson Defined Benefit Plan

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
• Decided: October 10, 2025
• Docket: 24-2574
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ____________

No. 24-2574 ____________

ALICE M. CARR, Appellant

v.

JEFFERSON DEFINED BENEFIT PLAN; ABINGTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL; THE PENSION PLAN OF ABINGTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL; THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY ____________

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (D.C. No. 2:23-cv-01822) District Judge: Honorable Harvey Bartle, III ____________

Argued on September 10, 2025

Before: HARDIMAN, KRAUSE, and CHUNG, Circuit Judges.

(Filed: October 10, 2025)

Kenneth D. Berman [Argued] Berman Legal LLC 230 S. Broad Street, Suite M-30 Philadelphia, PA 19102

Counsel for Appellant

Raymond A. Kresge [Argued] Cozen O’Connor One Liberty Place 1650 Market Street, Suite 2800 Philadelphia, PA 19103

Counsel for Appellee ____________

OPINION* ____________

HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge.

Alice Carr appeals several of the District Court’s orders and its judgment related

to her claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C.

§ 1001 et seq. We will affirm.

I

Carr worked at Abington Memorial Hospital (Abington) from 1997 to 2013,

mostly on a part-time basis. As an employee, she participated in the Pension Plan of

Abington Memorial Hospital (Abington Plan), which merged into the Jefferson Defined

Benefit Plan in 2018 after Thomas Jefferson University acquired Abington. Under the

Abington Plan, a participant has a vested interest in a pension after completing 1,000 or

more hours of qualifying work in a calendar year for at least five years. The parties agree

that Carr met this threshold in four calendar years: 2003, 2010, 2011, and 2012. They

dispute whether Carr had 1,000 hours of qualifying work in 1997.

In January 2022, Carr submitted a formal claim for pension benefits. The Jefferson

Plan denied her claim. Its decision relied on summary reports of her service hours

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent.

2 produced by a third-party that maintained employee records for the Abington Plan during

the relevant periods. Carr submitted an internal appeal, which was denied.

Carr filed a three-count complaint. Count I requested pension benefits under

ERISA § 502(a)(1)(B), codified at 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B). Count II sought a

monetary penalty for Defendants’ alleged failure to provide Carr with “a pension benefit

statement” within 30 days of her written request under ERISA § 502(a)(1)(B), codified at

29 U.S.C. §§ 1025(a)(1)(B)(ii) and 1132(c)(1). Count III was a claim for equitable relief

for breach of fiduciary duties under ERISA § 502(a)(1)(B), codified at 29 U.S.C.

§§ 1104(a)(1) and 1132(a)(3).

Abington and the Abington Plan moved to dismiss the complaint in its entirety.

Jefferson and the Jefferson Plan moved to dismiss Counts II and III. The District Court

dismissed Count I against Abington and the Abington Plan. It dismissed Count II as to

Abington, the Abington Plan, and the Jefferson Plan. The Court dismissed Count III as to

all parties. In doing so, the Court reasoned that Carr had not adequately pleaded a claim

for equitable relief because her claim for injunctive relief was indistinguishable from her

claim for benefits. Twenty-eight days later, Carr filed a motion to alter or amend a

judgment under Rule 59(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The Court denied

Carr’s motion as untimely, concluding that it was actually a motion for reconsideration

governed by the fourteen-day filing deadline under Local Rule 7.1(g).

After the Rule 12 motions were adjudicated, the parties filed cross-motions for

summary judgment as to Counts I and II on a stipulated administrative record. Two days

before those motions were filed, Defendants filed an untimely answer, which Carr moved

3 to strike. The Court denied the motion, however, after finding that Defendants’

untimeliness was attributable to excusable neglect.

The Court’s summary judgment decision was mixed. Carr’s claim for pension

benefits at Count I failed because the denial was not arbitrary or capricious. She achieved

a modest victory on Count II, though, when the Court awarded her a $4,070 monetary

penalty because the administrator provided her pension benefit statement thirty-seven

days late. Only Carr appealed.

II

The crux of Carr’s appeal is that the District Court erred by dismissing her

equitable claim for breach of fiduciary duty (Count III) when she purportedly sought

relief that was separate and distinct from her requested remedy at Count I. We disagree.

As the District Court explained, Carr’s “claim for injunctive relief is a claim for

her pension benefits dressed in the cloak of equity.” Carr v. Abington Mem’l Hosp., 2023

WL 8237253, at *5 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 28, 2023). At Count I, Carr sought “the maximum

past and future retirement benefits to which [she] is entitled under the Plan.” App. 258.

And at Count III, she sought the same thing using different words, asking the District

Court to “enjoin[] Defendants from denying [her] entitlement to the maximum retirement

benefits due her under the . . . Plan.” App. 265.

The Supreme Court has explained that the “equitable relief” available under

ERISA § 502(a)(3) is limited to “those categories of relief that were typically available in

equity.” Great-West Life & Annuity Ins. Co. v. Knudson, 534 U.S. 204, 210–11 (2002)

(citation modified). A claim for money owed under a contract or for “specific

4 performance of a past due monetary obligation” is relief that “was not typically available

in equity.” Id. (emphasis added).

Carr responds that the Supreme Court has held that ERISA § 502(a)(3) authorizes

courts to provide an “equitable surcharge,” a remedy available in trust cases, the precise

nature of which is disputed but which is “essentially equivalent to money damages,” Rose

v. PSA Airlines, Inc., 80 F.4th 488, 498 (4th Cir. 2023), cert. denied (2024). For support,

she cites CIGNA Corp. v. Amara, 563 U.S. 421, 445 (2011). This argument implicates

two issues that are the subject of circuit splits: whether (1) a surcharge may be an

appropriate equitable remedy1 and (2) ERISA plaintiffs may plead alternative claims

under ERISA §§ 502(a)(1) and (a)(3).2 But her appeal does not require us to reach either

issue. While Carr pleads that she is seeking “make-whole damages plus interest and a

‘surcharge,’” she sought no remedy beyond the award of her “maximum retirement

1 Compare, e.g., Rose v. PSA Airlines, Inc., 80 F.4th 488, 502, 504 (4th Cir. 2023), cert. denied, 144 S. Ct. 1346 (2024) (holding that a “surcharge” for a beneficiary’s losses qualifies as a damages remedy that plaintiffs may not recover under § 502(a)(3) because it was not “typically available in equity”), with Gimeno v. NCHMD, Inc., 38 F.4th 910, 914–15 (11th Cir. 2022) (holding that plaintiffs may recover an equitable surcharge under § 502(a)(3) because courts in equity could order a trustee to compensate a trust beneficiary for a loss due to a breach of fiduciary duty). 2 Compare, e.g., LaRocca v. Borden, Inc., 276 F.3d 22, 29 (1st Cir. 2002) (noting, in the context of summary judgment that “when the plaintiff can bring a claim for benefits under [§ 502(a)(1)], . . . she does not have a cause of action under [§ 502(a)(3)].” (citation modified)), with Silva v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 762 F.3d 711, 726–27 (8th Cir. 2014) (“We do not read [Varity Corp. v. Howe, 516 U.S. 489 (1996)] . . . to stand for the proposition that [the plaintiff] may only plead one cause of action.”).

5 benefits.” App. 265.3 In other words, counsel’s use of the term “surcharge” was artful

pleading intended to reframe her Count I request for retirement benefits as equitable. She

is not actually seeking a surcharge. And this sort of “lawyerly inventiveness” cannot pass

muster under ERISA § 502(a)(3). Great-West, 534 U.S. at 211 n.1. So the District Court

properly dismissed Count III as duplicative of Count I.

III

Carr raises several other arguments that we find unpersuasive. First, she contends

that the District Court erred by dismissing Count III without allowing her to amend her

complaint. Yet Carr neither sought leave to amend Count III nor attached a proposed

amended complaint. See Fletcher-Harlee Corp. v. Pote Concrete Contractors, Inc., 482

F.3d 247, 252 (3d Cir. 2007) (“[T]o request leave to amend a complaint, the plaintiff

must submit a draft amended complaint to the court so that it can determine whether

amendment would be futile. . . a failure to submit a draft amended complaint is fatal to a

request for leave to amend.”). And outside of civil rights cases, there is no requirement

that district courts sua sponte grant leave to amend before dismissing a claim. Id.

Second, Carr challenges the District Court’s decision to construe her purported

3 Carr also pleads—but does not discuss in her appellate briefs—a request for “disgorge[ement of] the Plan’s profits from not paying Carr the retirement benefits to which she is entitled.” App. 265. That relief is not available because Great-West requires a plaintiff to demonstrate a right to particular funds or property in the defendant’s possession, 534 U.S. at 213–14, and participants in a defined benefit plan have “no ‘claim to any particular asset that composes a part of the plan’s general asset pool,’” Perelman v. Perelman, 793 F.3d 368, 374 (3d Cir. 2015) (quoting Hughes Aircraft Co. v. Jacobson, 525 U.S. 432, 440 (1999)). Moreover, under these plans, “the employer, not the plan participants, receives any surplus” if the value of the plan increases, so Carr cannot recover any investment profits. Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A., 590 U.S. 538, 543 (2020). 6 Rule 59(e) motion as a motion for reconsideration. Rule 59(e) provides that “[a] motion

to alter or amend a judgment must be filed no later than 28 days after the entry of the

judgment.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). A “judgment” is “any order from which an appeal lies.”

Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(a). The District Court’s order dismissing one count of Carr’s three-

count complaint was not an appealable judgment that Carr could have challenged through

a Rule 59(e) motion. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b). The Court correctly treated Carr’s motion

as one for reconsideration of the order dismissing Count III and, for that reason, properly

dismissed it as untimely under Local Rule 7.1(g).

Third, Carr appeals the District Court’s order granting summary judgment for the

Jefferson Plan on Count II. She contends that the District Court erred in holding that the

administrator’s December 22, 2021 letter satisfied the requirements of ERISA § 105(a).

Carr also argues that the Court erred in holding that the requested personnel and wage

records and pension valuation fell outside the scope of ERISA § 105(a). The Court did

not err in holding that the December 22, 2021 letter was a pension benefit statement. The

letter explained the total benefits accrued and listed her nonforfeitable pension benefits.

Carr is correct that the letter does not mention the earliest date on which her benefits

would become nonforfeitable. But as a terminated former employee, Carr could be fairly

charged with knowing that her benefits could not possibly vest after her discharge.

Finally, it was written in a manner calculated to be understood by the average plan

participant. The letter therefore fulfilled the requirements of ERISA § 105(a).

Nor did the Court err in holding that the requested personnel and wage records

were outside the scope of ERISA § 105(a). That subsection requires plan administrators

7 to “furnish a pension benefit statement . . . to a participant or beneficiary of the plan upon

written request.” 29 U.S.C. § 1025(a)(1)(B)(ii). There is no reason to read more

requirements into this subsection.

Finally, Carr argues that the District Court erred when it denied her motion to

strike Defendants’ answer as untimely. Defendants’ answer was filed on May 7, 2024,

five and a half months after it was due. The parties filed their cross motions for summary

judgment on May 9, 2024. The Court reasonably applied the factors outlined in Pioneer

Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership, 507 U.S. 380, 395–96

(1993). Key to its decision not to strike the answer were its findings that Carr was not

prejudiced by the late filing, and that the late filing resulted from excusable neglect. The

District Court did not abuse its discretion because Carr did not articulate prejudice to her

ability to prosecute her claims.

IV

For the stated reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s orders and judgment.