Barbara J. Fuller v. SunTrust Banks, Inc.

744 F.3d 685, 57 Employee Benefits Cas. (BNA) 2089, 2014 WL 718309, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 3610
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedFebruary 26, 2014
Docket12-16217
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 744 F.3d 685 (Barbara J. Fuller v. SunTrust Banks, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Barbara J. Fuller v. SunTrust Banks, Inc., 744 F.3d 685, 57 Employee Benefits Cas. (BNA) 2089, 2014 WL 718309, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 3610 (11th Cir. 2014).

Opinions

HULL, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff Barbara Fuller (“Fuller”) appeals the Rule 12(b)(1) dismissal of her putative class action complaint brought pursuant to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”), 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq.

After careful review and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of Fuller’s complaint.1

I. BACKGROUND

A. Fuller’s Employment with SunTrust

For 38 years, from 1967 to 2005, Plaintiff Fuller worked in various clerical positions for the Defendant SunTrust Banks, Inc. (“SunTrust”), a large commercial bank, which provides deposit, credit, trust, and investment services.

[688]*688At some point, SunTrust established a defined contribution employee benefit 401(k) Plan (“the Plan”) in which Fuller participated. SunTrust was the sponsor of the Plan and one of the Plan’s named fiduciaries.2 Each Plan participant, like Fuller, had her own account and could contribute eligible wages to that account on a pre-tax basis.

The Plan offered a variety of investment vehicles in which each participant, like Fuller, could choose to invest her 401(k) account’s assets. A participant selected her own investments and thereby directed how her contributions were invested. The Plan participants bore the risk of poor performance of the Plan’s investments or investment losses.

In late 2005, Fuller ended her employment, and on October 12, 2005, Fuller was distributed the entire investment in her 401(k) account.

B. Amended Complaint

More than five years later, on March 11, 2011, Plaintiff Fuller filed a putative class-action complaint alleging various ERISA violations by the following Defendant fiduciaries: (1) SunTrust; (2) SunTrust’s Benefits Plan Committee; (3) previous Plan Committee members;3 and (4) previous Chairs of SunTrust’s Compensation Committee4 (collectively “Defendants”). On June 6, 2011, Fuller amended her complaint (the “complaint”).

Fuller’s lawsuit involves her claims that Defendant SunTrust and related co-defendants breached their ERISA-imposed fiduciary duties of loyalty and prudence to the Plan participants. According to the complaint, Defendant SunTrust and the co-defendants breached these duties by selecting and adding these investment options in the Plan menu — specifically proprietary mutual funds of SunTrust that performed poorly and had high fees benefiting SunTrust, rather than the Plan participants.

While SunTrust was the Plan sponsor, SunTrust’s Benefits Plan Committee (“Plan Committee”) was the Plan administrator and a named fiduciary of the Plan. The Plan Committee had the “authority, discretion, and responsibility to select, monitor, and remove or replace” the Plan’s investment funds. Plan Committee members met four or more times a year and reviewed the performance of the Plan’s investment funds. The Chair of Sun-Trust’s Compensation Committee was also a named fiduciary of the Plan and was responsible for appointing and monitoring the Plan Committee members.

Beginning in 1997, the Plan Committee began to add proprietary mutual funds to the Plan’s investment options. These proprietary mutual funds were funds that SunTrust’s subsidiaries offered and managed, and SunTrust’s subsidiaries received as revenue all of the funds’ management fees. Effective July 1, 1997, Plan Committee members added these proprietary mu[689]*689tual funds as investment options: (1) the STI Classic Capital Appreciation Fund; (2) the STI Classic Investment Grade Bond Fund; (3) the STI Classic Short-Term Bond Fund; and (4) the STI Classic Prime Quality Money Market Fund. Effective 1999, Plan Committee members added (5) the STI Classic Small Cap Growth Fund and (6) the STI Classic Growth and Income Fund.

Effective 2002, Plan Committee members added (7) the STI Classic Mid-Cap Equity Fund. Effective 2005, they added (8) the STI Classic International Equity Index Fund (“the STI International Fund”). We refer to these eight proprietary mutual funds collectively as the “STI Classic Funds.”5 The Plan did not include any non-proprietary mutual funds as investment options until 2005.

As to these proprietary mutual funds, the complaint alleges that Trusco Capital Management, Inc. (“Trusco”),6 a SunTrust subsidiary and investment advisor, provided advisory services to the STI Classic Funds and received as revenue all of the investment management fees generated by the investment of assets into the STI Classic Funds. Trusco also served as an investment advisor to the Plan and attended Plan Committee Meetings.

Fuller invested in these three proprietary mutual funds in the Plan’s menu of investment options: (1) the STI Classic Short-Term Bond Fund; (2) the STI Classic Prime Quality Money Market Fund; and (3) the STI Classic Growth and Income Fund. Fuller’s complaint does not allege when she first contributed to her 401(k) Plan or when she first invested in these proprietary mutual funds.

Fuller’s complaint does allege that she brings this ERISA action on behalf of the Plan and all similarly situated Plan participants (and their beneficiaries) who had a balance in their Plan accounts in any of the STI Classic Funds at any time from April 25, 2002 to December 31, 2010 (the “Class Period”).

Fuller’s complaint alleges “corporate self-dealing” at the expense of SunTrust’s Plan participants. Fuller alleges that Defendants acted in their financial interests, and not in the interest of the Plan’s participants, by selecting for the Plan the proprietary STI Classic Funds and then repeatedly failing to remove or replace them. Fuller alleges that the STI Classic Funds, affiliated with SunTrust entities, offered poor performance and high fees as compared to unaffiliated investment vehicles. Fuller alleges that the STI Classic Funds had poor performance and higher fees as compared to mutual funds offered by the Vanguard Group, Inc. and other “separately managed accounts and collective trusts managed by [non-affiliated] investment ad-visors.”

Fuller’s Count 1 focuses on prohibited transactions. Count 1 claims that the Plan Committee and its members (collectively “Committee Defendants”) engaged in prohibited transactions involving the STI Classic Funds, in violation of ERISA § 406, 29 U.S.C. § 1106. Count 1 contends that the Committee Defendants [690]*690caused the Plan “to pay, directly or indirectly, investment management and other fees” in connection with the Funds and should.have known that this exchange of property between the Plan and the parties in interest was prohibited.

Count 2 involves the Committee Defendants’ alleged breaches of their statutory duties of prudence and loyalty.

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Bluebook (online)
744 F.3d 685, 57 Employee Benefits Cas. (BNA) 2089, 2014 WL 718309, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 3610, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/barbara-j-fuller-v-suntrust-banks-inc-ca11-2014.