La Barbera v. J.D. Collyer Equipment Corp.

337 F.3d 132, 2003 WL 21689582
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedJuly 21, 2003
DocketDocket No. 02-7351
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 337 F.3d 132 (La Barbera v. J.D. Collyer Equipment Corp.) 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
La Barbera v. J.D. Collyer Equipment Corp., 337 F.3d 132, 2003 WL 21689582 (2d Cir. 2003).

Opinion

WINTER, Circuit Judge.

The Trustees of a local union’s benefit funds appeal from Judge Hurley’s decision granting summary judgment and holding invalid a policy they adopted regarding the amounts owed by firms in which the owner, or owner’s spouse, works as an employee. See La Barbera v. J.D. Collyer Equip. Corp., 98-CV-3818 (E.D.N.Y. May 16, 2001) (Memorandum and Order). We affirm.1

BACKGROUND

In the 1990s, Local 282, an affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, entered into written collective bargaining agreements with various employers in the heavy construction and [134]*134excavating industry on Long Island. Five trust funds, all of which are governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”), 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq., were established as part of these agreements: a Welfare Fund (providing health care coverage), a Pension Fund, an Annuity Fund, a Job Training Fund, and a Vacation and Sick Leave Fund (the “Funds”). Employers are required to contribute to the Funds on behalf of those employees covered by the collective bargaining agreements.

The amount of employer contributions required is tied to the number of hours each employee has worked. For example, Section 12(a)-(b) of the 1993-96 and 1996-99 collective bargaining agreements required contributions to the Welfare and Pension Funds “for each hour worked under this Agreement ... up to a maximum of forty (40) hours per week.”

The amount of benefits employees receive is also tied to the total number of hours worked by the employees in specified periods. For example, under the Welfare Fund, employees who work 200 hours or more in an employment quarter receive full health care benefits, including full accident and sickness benefits. However, employees can maintain full health care benefits, but not accident and sickness benefits, if they work at least 120 hours in an employment quarter. Employees who work 1,000 hours or more in covered employment in a twelve-month period commencing February 1 and ending January 31 (regardless of the number of hours per quarter) also receive full health care benefits for the following year, beginning March 1 and ending February 28. Employees who fail to meet either the 120-hour quarterly threshold or the 1000-hour yearly minimum lose their health care coverage.

As a result of these provisions, employers are required to maintain records that can be audited periodically to confirm the accuracy of the reports submitted. If an employer fails to submit required reports and/or supporting books and records for audit within twenty days after a written demand, Article VI § 1(d) of the Trust Agreement executed by the union, the employers, and the Trustees, authorizes the Trustees to estimate the number of hours worked by the firm’s employees. In these circumstances, the Trustees are permitted to compute the amount of contributions due for any month by adding ten percent to the number of hours in the “base month,” defined as the month in which the largest number of hours were reported in the previous twelve reports. In the event that there is no determinable base month due to a lack of reports submitted by the employer or no previous audit reports, then employees are deemed to have worked 40 hours per week for the entire unreported period, obligating the employer to make contributions accordingly.

We view the evidence in the light most favorable to appellants. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). Beginning in the mid-1990s the Trastees perceived that some firms often reported an employee working 120 hours each quarter, the precise minimum amount required to qualify the employee and his family for health care benefits from the Welfare Fund. The Trustees also noted instances where employers falsified the hours worked, sometimes to the point of altering a company’s books and records. The Trustees observed that these events often coincided with firms held by “100% owners” — i.e., firms owned by one person, who reported himself or herself, or his or her spouse, to the Funds as an employee of the company, or firms owned wholly by [135]*135a married couple, with one spouse reported as working for the company.

For example, appellees J.D. Collyer Corp. (“Collyer”) and Palmo Leasing Corp. (“Palmo”) are family owned and operated entities in which the husband is the employee and the wife is the 100% shareholder/employer. In the case of Collyer, the audits revealed that Brenda Collyer had reported her husband, Jeffrey Collyer, as working exactly 120 hours in four of sixteen quarters. In a fifth quarter, she had reported her husband as working 128 hours, and in a sixth quarter, 136 hours. J.A. at 100-06. There was evidence that Brenda Collyer may have inflated her husband’s hours as well as shifted hours from a non-familial employee to her husband in order to meet the 120-hour threshold. J.A. at 178, 181, 194-98, 228-30, 242-45, 310-15.

The Trustees found a similar pattern of reporting following an audit of Palmo’s books and records for the periods July 1, 1994 through August 31, 1998. In fourteen of sixteen quarters, Margaret Pa-lumbo, the 100% shareholder of the corporation, reported that her husband, John Palumbo, had worked between 120 and 152 hours. In seven of those quarters she reported him working at the 120-hour minimum. J.A. at 120-33.

In the past, a drop in the average number of hours worked caused the Funds’ actuarial consultants to advise the Trustees to raise overall contribution rates to maintain the participants’ benefits. The Trustees suspected that the misreporting of hours by 100% owners was contributing to the current increase in the contribution rates required to maintain health coverage for participants eligible for benefits from the Welfare Fund. This may have been the case because ordinary employees who become eligible for benefits will generally have worked substantially more than the minimum hours required and thereby caused the payment of more than the minimum contributions required. The Trustees were also concerned that a lower average number of hours would adversely affect the pensions of future retirees.

In response to these concerns, the Trustees adopted a resolution (the “100% owner rule”) providing:

Effective May 20, 1998, the Trustees hereby resolve that where an Employer has submitted remittance reports to the Funds stating hours have been worked in covered employment by an individual who, alone or with his or her spouse, is a 100 percent owner of the Employer, or by the children, parents or siblings of such 100 percent owner, the employer shall be required to report and pay contributions for each such person for no less than forty (40) hours a week for each week of every month the person has been reported to have worked in covered employment. For each such person, the employer must report forty (40) hours per week for every week in the month, irrespective of the amount of work the person actually performs or the amount of compensation the person receives in a month.2

On May 28, 1998, and July 22, 1999, the Trustees commenced actions against Col-lyer and Palmo, respectively, under Sections 502(a)(3) and 515 of ERISA, 29 [136]*136U.S.C. §§ 1132(a)(3) and

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