Corman v. Nationwide Life Ins. Co.

347 F. Supp. 3d 248
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedSeptember 27, 2018
DocketCIVIL ACTION NO. 17-3912
StatusPublished

This text of 347 F. Supp. 3d 248 (Corman v. Nationwide Life Ins. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Corman v. Nationwide Life Ins. Co., 347 F. Supp. 3d 248 (E.D. Pa. 2018).

Opinion

WENDY BEETLESTONE, District Judge

This dispute arises in the aftermath of a massive scheme to convert welfare benefit funds that was perpetrated by John Koresko and various associates. See Perez v. Koresko , 86 F.Supp.3d 293 (E.D. Pa. 2015) ; Solis v. Koresko , 884 F.Supp.2d 261 (E.D. Pa. 2012), aff'd , 646 F. App'x 230 (3d Cir. 2016). Plaintiffs' Complaint centers on an insurance policy issued by Defendant Nationwide Life Insurance Company ("Nationwide"). They allege that Nationwide violated various laws by allowing Koresko to raid the policy. Specifically, they allege that Nationwide: (1) breached its fiduciary duties and participated in prohibited transactions in violation of Section 1132(a)(2) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA"); (2) knowingly participated in fiduciary breaches and in prohibited transactions in violation of Section 1132(a)(3) of ERISA; (3) conducted the affairs of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity in violation of Section 1962(c) of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO"); and (4) violated Section 1962(d) by conspiring to violate Section 1962(c) of RICO.

Pending now are Nationwide's Motion to Dismiss and Plaintiffs' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment. In its Motion to Dismiss, Nationwide argues, among other things, that Plaintiffs' ERISA claims are time-barred, and that Plaintiffs do not allege sufficient facts to support their RICO claims. Plaintiffs oppose both these arguments, and further move for summary judgment on the ERISA claims.

For the reasons that follow, Nationwide's motion shall be granted in full, and Plaintiffs' motion shall be denied.

I. FACTS1

A. Plaintiffs' Interactions with the Koresko Arrangement

Between 2002 and 2013, John Koresko and others operated a multiple *251employer welfare arrangement (the "Arrangement" or the "Koresko Arrangement") that allowed employers to purchase cash value life insurance policies and take a tax deduction for the premiums as a business expense. Koresko systematically converted and misused the assets of the participating welfare benefit plans. Because the Arrangement and Koresko's defalcations have already been comprehensively recounted in Perez v. Koresko, supra , only the facets of the scheme relevant to the claims raised here will be described below.

The Arrangement was nominally run by PennMont, a corporation whose officers were John Koresko and his brother Lawrence. PennMont played a public-facing role in recruiting participants. It explained to prospective participants that in order to take advantage of the Arrangement's purported tax benefits, an employer needed to sign an adoption agreement that established the employer's own welfare benefit plan according to terms dictated by Koresko, and the employer also needed to agree to the terms pre-defined by Koresko. Employers then paid insurance premiums into a trust, and the trustee passed those payments on to insurance companies. The trustee, importantly, was named as the owner and beneficiary of the policies.

Plaintiff Energy Alternative Studies Inc. Health and Welfare Plan (the "EAS Plan") was a participating plan; Plaintiff Energy Alternative Studies was the sponsoring employer; and Plaintiff James Corman was a participant in the EAS Plan whose life was insured by a policy purchased through the trust and issued by Defendant Nationwide.

Plaintiffs joined the Koresko Arrangement in early 2000, at which time an insurance policy was purchased from Nationwide insuring the lives of Plaintiff James Corman and his wife Mary Corman. The Complaint alleges that Nationwide allowed a Koresko-related entity to change the owner and beneficiary from the EAS Plan to the Koreskos' REAL VEBA trust.2 The Complaint suggests-although it does not explicitly state-that Community Trust Company ("CTC"), took over as the trustee at this point.

Over the following 12 years, the EAS Plan contributed $865,000 to CTC, which *252used the money to pay premiums on the Policy. In 2009, Nationwide loaned a Koresko-related entity3 $578,777.52 collateralized by the cash value that had accumulated in the policy. The loan has accrued $276,953 in interest, and has not been repaid.

Three months after the loan was made, Plaintiffs requested information from Nationwide and Koresko-related entities about the status of the policy, but they never received any meaningful response. Plaintiffs only learned of the 2009 loan sometime after September 2013 when Koresko was removed from his position of fiduciary authority, and they filed this lawsuit on August 31, 2017.

B. The Key Documents

According to the Complaint, the relationships among these parties were governed by four documents: the Plan Documents, the insurance policy (the "Policy"), the Verifications, and the Custodial Agreement.

The Plan Documents established the EAS Plan, and stated that insurance policies purchased under the Plan and the cash value contained in those policies "shall be owned by the Trustee." The Plan Documents also granted wide-ranging authority to the trustee to control those policies:

The Trustee may purchase Policies on each Participant.... The policy shall be a contract between the Trustee and the Insurer and shall reserve to the Trustee all rights, options and Benefits provided by the Policy and permitted by the Insurer, except that the right to name and change the Beneficiary shall be exercised ... in writing pursuant to a power of attorney or other document.

The Policy, although it insured the Cormans' lives, made clear that it was "a legal contract between the Owner [the trustee of the Plan] and Nationwide," that "all rights in [the] Policy belong to [the Owner]," and that the Owner "may assign any or all rights under [the] Policy."

The last two documents that appear to play an important role are the "Verifications" and the "Custodial Agreement," both of which were purportedly executed by CTC. The Verifications designated Jeanne Bonney, a Koresko associate, as "Appointed Signator" to sign Arrangement-related Documents on behalf of CTC, and further stated:

The trust empowers the trustee to exercise any and all rights associated with owning life insurance policies and the trustee can exercise these rights without the consent of the insured. These rights include but are not limited to: surrendering the policy, withdrawing policy values, borrowing against the policy, transferring ownership, and changing the beneficiary.

The Custodial Agreement designated the Koresko Law Firm as CTC's agent, and apparently also stated that the trustee had the same powers listed in the Verifications.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

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Bluebook (online)
347 F. Supp. 3d 248, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/corman-v-nationwide-life-ins-co-paed-2018.