Hannan v. Hartford Financial Services, Inc.

688 F. App'x 85
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedApril 25, 2017
Docket16-1316-cv
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 688 F. App'x 85 (Hannan v. Hartford Financial Services, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hannan v. Hartford Financial Services, Inc., 688 F. App'x 85 (2d Cir. 2017).

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

Plaintiffs-appellants Patrick Hannan, Dawn Lemieux, Nicole Groomes, and Peggy Horn (together, “plaintiffs”) appeal from the March 29, 2016 judgment of the district court (Bryant, J.) dismissing their claims against defendants-appellees Family Dollar Stores Inc., Family Dollar Stores Inc. Group Insurance Plan, and Plan Administrators (together, “Family Dollar “), and Hartford Financial Services, Inc. (“Hartford”) under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”), 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq. By memorandum of decision entered March 29, 2016, the district court granted defendants’ motions to dismiss the complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal.

Hartford is an insurance company that issued a group life insurance policy (the “Policy”) to plaintiffs’ employer Family Dollar Stores Inc. under an insurance coverage plan (the “Plan”).1 The Plan automatically enrolled all employees in basic life insurance and offered them the option to purchase supplemental life insurance. As alleged in the complaint, plaintiffs received enrollment materials representing that basic life insurance would be “noncontributory,” meaning that Family Dollar would pay all costs, and supplemental life insurance would be “contributory,” meaning that employees would be required to contribute toward the cost. App. at 19-20. The enrollment materials also stated that all employees would receive basic life insurance “at no cost” and that the optional supplemental life insurance premiums were “surprisingly affordable” and “without high cost.” App. at 19, 28. Plaintiffs claimed this information was material to their ability to make informed decisions about enrollment and misled them into thinking supplemental life insurance would be a prudent investment.

In March 2015, plaintiffs filed a class action complaint alleging that defendants engaged in a “cross-subsidization” scheme to charge supplemental life insurance premiums at prices higher than warranted by underwriting and actuarial projections. App. at 15. They alleged that Family Dollar applied part of the employee-paid premiums toward its cost for basic life insurance. Plaintiffs claimed that Family Dollar benefited by avoiding the full cost of basic life insurance, that Hartford benefítted by receiving the insurance contract, and that [88]*88employees who bought supplemental life insurance suffered monetary losses because they were overcharged for premiums. The complaint asserted that defendants violated ERISA by breaching their fiduciary duties, failing to remedy each other’s breaches, and participating in prohibited self-dealing.

On March 29, 2016, the district court dismissed plaintiffs’ claims because they did not identify a misrepresentation or false statement, there was no fiduciary duty to disclose Family Dollar’s allocation of supplemental life insurance premiums, the insurance rate structure did not violate ERISA or any fiduciary duties, and the selection of the rate structure did not constitute self-dealing.

On appeal, plaintiffs challenge the dismissal of their (1) fiduciary and co-fiduciary claims with respect to the misrepresentations and omissions in the enrollment materials and (2) prohibited transaction claims with respect to defendants’ self-dealing and Hartford’s participation in the scheme.

“We review de novo the dismissal of a complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), construing the complaint liberally, accepting all factual allegations as true, and drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiffs favor.” Nicosia v. Amazon.com, Inc., 834 F.3d 220, 230 (2d Cir. 2016). “To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ’state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)). We may affirm the dismissal on “any basis for which there is sufficient support in the record, including grounds not relied on by the district court.” Lotes Co. v. Hon Hai Precision Indus. Co., 753 F.3d 395, 413 (2d Cir. 2014) (quoting Bruh v. Bessemer Venture Partners III L.P., 464 F.3d 202, 205 (2d Cir. 2006)).

“The central purpose of ERISA is ’to protect beneficiaries of employee benefit plans.’” Rinehart v. Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., 817 F.3d 56, 63 (2d Cir. 2016) (per curiam) (quoting Slupinski v. First Unum Life Ins. Co., 554 F.3d 38, 47 (2d Cir. 2009)). ERISA furthers this objective by imposing a duty of care on fiduciaries, id. and requiring them to discharge their fiduciary duty “solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries [of the employee benefit plan] and ... for the exclusive purpose of: (i) providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries; and (ii) defraying reasonable expenses of administering the plan,” 29 U.S.C. § 1104(a)(1).

We conclude that the district court correctly dismissed the complaint because it failed to plausibly allege that Hartford was a fiduciary under ERISA, that Family Dollar made any fraudulent misrepresentations or omissions, or that defendants engaged in prohibited transactions.

A. Fiduciary status

An entity is a “fiduciary” of an employee benefit plan to the extent it exercises (1) discretionary authority, responsibility, or control over the management or administration of the plan or (2) any authority or control over the management or disposition of plan assets. 29 U.S.C. § 1002(21)(A). “Under this definition, [an entity] may be an ERISA fiduciary with respect to certain matters but not others, for [it] has that status only ’to the extent’ that [it] has or exercises the described authority or responsibility.” F.H. Krear & Co. v. Nineteen Named Trs., 810 F.2d 1250, 1259 (2d Cir. 1987). An entity that negotiates a contract with an ERISA benefits plan at arm’s length and has no other relationship to the plan, for example, is not [89]*89a fiduciary with respect to the selection of the contract terms governing the plan. Id. This is because it “has no authority over or responsibility to the plan and presumably is unable to exercise any control over the [plan] trustees’ decision whether or not, and on what terms, to enter into an agreement with [it].” Id.

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688 F. App'x 85, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hannan-v-hartford-financial-services-inc-ca2-2017.