Frommert v. Conkright

913 F.3d 101
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit·Decided January 14, 2019·No. Docket Nos. 17-114-cv(L); 17-738-cv(CON); August Term, 2017·Published·Cited by 16 cases

Opinion

LOHIER, Circuit Judge:

The principal issue in this appeal is whether the United States District Court for the Western District of New York (Larimer, J. ) awarded an adequate equitable remedy for violations under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA"), 29 U.S.C. § 1101 et seq., related to Xerox Corporation's pension plan (the "Plan"). The plaintiffs-appellants ("Plaintiffs") "are Xerox employees who left the company in the 1980's, received lump-sum distributions of retirement benefits they had earned up to that point, and were later rehired." Conkright v. Frommert, 559 U.S. 506, 510, 130 S.Ct. 1640, 176 L.Ed.2d 469 (2010). "The dispute giving rise to this case concerns how to account for [the Plaintiffs'] past distributions when calculating their current benefits-that is, how to avoid paying [the Plaintiffs] the same benefits twice." Id. The defendants-appellees are Xerox, the Plan, and individually named retirement plan administrators (individually and collectively, the "Plan Administrator"). In our most recent decision in this case we determined that the Plan Administrator's method of calculating the Plaintiffs' current benefits violated ERISA's notice requirements and therefore could not be applied to the Plaintiffs' benefits. Frommert v. Conkright, 738 F.3d 522, 531-34 (2d Cir. 2013) (" Frommert III"). We remanded to the District Court to fashion, in its discretion, an equitable remedy providing appropriate retirement benefits to the Plaintiffs (we refer to these benefits as "New Benefits"). Id. at 534.

Selecting the equitable remedy of reformation, the District Court held that New Benefits should be calculated as if the Plaintiffs were newly hired on their return to Xerox.

*105Frommert v. Becker, 153 F.Supp.3d 599, 605-07, 615-17 (W.D.N.Y. 2016) (" January 2016 Decision"). In a separate decision and order, the District Court also determined that the Plaintiffs are entitled to prejudgment interest at the federal prime rate. Frommert v. Becker, 216 F.Supp.3d 309, 316 (W.D.N.Y. 2016) (" November 2016 Decision").

We affirm.

BACKGROUND

We assume familiarity with our three prior decisions in this long-running case, as well as the Supreme Court's decision in Conkright. See Conkright, 559 U.S. 506, 130 S.Ct. 1640 ; Frommert III, 738 F.3d 522 ; Frommert v. Conkright, 535 F.3d 111 (2d Cir. 2008) (" Frommert II"); Frommert v. Conkright, 433 F.3d 254 (2d Cir. 2006) (" Frommert I"); see also Testa v. Becker, 910 F.3d 677, 679-81 (2d Cir. 2018) (describing litigation history). We refer to the facts, history, and record of these and other prior proceedings only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm.

Throughout this litigation, the Plaintiffs have claimed that the Plan Administrator improperly calculated New Benefits under the Plan in violation of ERISA. See, e.g., Frommert v. Conkright, 328 F.Supp.2d 420, 423 (W.D.N.Y. 2004). The District Court initially granted summary judgment in favor of the Plan Administrator. Id. at 424, 439. We vacated, concluding that the Plan Administrator's method of accounting for distributions of prior benefits, and its resulting calculation of New Benefits, violated the Plaintiffs' rights under ERISA. Frommert I, 433 F.3d at 256-57.

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Frommert v. Conkright, 913 F.3d 101 (2d Cir. 2019).

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