Indianapolis Machinery Co. v. Bollman

347 N.E.2d 518, 169 Ind. App. 195, 1976 Ind. App. LEXIS 904
Indiana Court of Appeals·Decided May 17, 1976·No. No. 1-575A84·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

Robertson, C. J.

This appeal arises from the remand, upon a previous appeal, of a class action brought by plaintiffs-appellees, Bollman and McGraw, as members of the Company’s profit-sharing plan and trust, for the purpose of reallocating to qualified members of the plan those trust funds improperly allocated to the accounts of the defendants-appellants, Borinstein and Letzter, whom the prior appeal determined ineligible for plan membership. The trial court ordered reallocation in favor of the members of the profit-sharing trust and denied recovery of the funds to the Company or Borinstein and Letzter.

The issue upon appeal is whether the judgment of the trial court is contrary to law. We reverse in part and affirm in part.

On December 1, 1952, the Company established a profit-sharing plan and a profit-sharing trust for the benefit of its employees. The provisions of the plan provided that all regular, full-time salaried employees over 23 years of age who had been with the company three or more years had the right to become members. The plan further provided that an employee could be extended: beyond his normal retirement [197]*197date by the board of directors of the company, in extraordinary circumstances, and continue to enjoy the benefits of the plan. The Company initially funded the trust with $1000.00. The plan provided that the Company’s contribution to the trust for each taxable year commencing after 1952 would be an amount equal to the lesser of 100% of the Company’s annual net profit or 15% of the aggregate compensation of all plan members during the taxable year, the maximum amount deductible under the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. Borinstein and Letzter were included as members of the plan from its inception, and contributions were made on their behalf. Additionally, on November 22, 1954, the board of directors of the Company unanimously adopted the following resolution:

“RESOLVED, that Louis J. Borinstein and Edwin E. Letzter, and each of them, be, and they hereby are, requested to remain in the employ of the company on a year-to-year basis until such time as such employment shall be terminated by mutual agreement between the corporation and each of them respectively, and that each of said employees so long as they shall so continue in the employ of the company shall continue to enjoy the benefits of the corporation’s Profit Sharing Plan.”

Borinstein and Letzter continued in the employ of the Company, and their salaries were included in the aggregate compensation used to determine the amount contributed by the Company for each year, except for two years when the Company’s net profit precluded such contribution.

In January of 1967, after the profit sharing plan had been in existence for nearly fifteen years, the plaintiffs (Bollman and McGraw) members of the plan, brought a class action for the purpose of reallocating to other members of the plan trust funds alleged to have been improperly allocated to defendants Borinstein and Letzter. From a judgment for the defendants, the plaintiffs appealed. In our opinion reported in 150 Ind. App. 465, 276 N.E.2d 606, the Second Division of this Court reversed the trial court and ruled that Borinstein had [198]*198not been at any time a regular, full-time employee of the Company and that Letzter had not been properly extended as a member of the profit-sharing plan past the normal retirement date provided in the plan. The court held that neither qualified for plan membership, and that as a consequence there had been an improper allocation of funds to the accounts of the two men. The court, however, expressly declined to decide who would benefit by a reallocation of the trust funds or whether the Company would be entitled to a return of conrti-butions, but remanded the case to the trial court for a determination of those issues.

On November 28, 1969, after the original trial of the case, the Company amended its plan by changing the requirements for membership. As a result, the plan no longer requires that a member be a regular, full-time employee of the Company or that extraordinary circumstances exist for continuance of employment and membership beyond the normal retirement date. The trial court on remand found that Borin-stein and Letzter were members of the amended plan from its effective date.

The funds which are at issue on appeal are those amounts allocated to the accounts of the two men when they were not properly members of the plan. Those amounts consist of the Company’s contributions on behalf of Borinstein from the inception of the original plan to the effective date of the amended plan and those funds contributed by the company to the trust on behalf of Letzter from December, 1954, to the effective date of the amended plan, together with all earnings on those funds and forfeitures from terminated members.

Following remand, Cohen, as administrator of Borinstein’s estate, was substituted as a defendant in place of the decedent, and Cohen and Letzter filed a cross-claim against the Company seeking judgments for the amounts formerly credited to their accounts in the trust, in the event the court determined that they were not entitled to receive distribution directly from the trust.

[199]*199Upon, petition of the plaintiffs, the court removed the trustees of the profit-sharing trust and the administrative committee of the plan and appointed Peoples’ Bank and Trust Company as successor trustee and administrator. The successor trustee was ordered to docket the profit-sharing plan and trust in the circuit court. The Company filed its petition for an order requiring the successor trustee to account for and to pay over to the Company the aggregate amount by which the Company’s annual contributions to the trust were increased by including in the calculation the compensation paid to Borinstein and Letzter during the years when they were not eligible to be members of the plan, together with the earnings of the trust upon those amounts.

All matters in issue, arising in the class action and trust docket, were consolidated for purposes of trial. The cause was tried to the court without a jury, and the court made findings of fact and conclusions of law and entered final judgment. The court ordered that the amounts improperly allocated to the accounts of Borinstein and Letzter be reallocated to other qualified members of the trust. The court ruled that neither the Company nor Borinstein and Letzter were entitled to any recovery from the trust and also denied Borinstein and Letzter recovery on their cross-claim against the Company.

The Company, Borinstein, and Letzter appealed from the judgment of the trial court, each contending that the judgment is contrary to law. On January 12, 1976, this court granted a motion to dismiss the appeal of Letzter.

The Company argues that by reason of the Appellate Court’s holding that Borinstein and Letzter were not valid members of the profit-sharing plan, there has been a partial failure of the profit-sharing plan and trust with the result that the successor trustee holds upon a resulting trust in favor of the Company the total amounts contributed on behalf of Borinstein and Letzter.

[200]*200The applicable rule of law is stated in Pavy v. Peoples Bank & Trust Co. (1964), 135 Ind. App. 647, 195 N.E.2d 862:

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Indianapolis Machinery Co. v. Bollman, 347 N.E.2d 518, 169 Ind. App. 195, 1976 Ind. App. LEXIS 904 (Ind. Ct. App. 1976).

347 N.E.2d 518 (Indianapolis Machinery Co. v. Bollman) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Indianapolis MacHinery Co., Inc. v. Cohen
378 N.E.2d 931 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1978)