Lewis v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

197 F. Supp. 3d 16, 62 Employee Benefits Cas. (BNA) 1990, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87199, 2016 WL 3676099
CourtDistrict Court, District of Columbia
DecidedJuly 6, 2016
DocketCivil Action No. 2015-1328
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 197 F. Supp. 3d 16 (Lewis v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, District of Columbia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lewis v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, 197 F. Supp. 3d 16, 62 Employee Benefits Cas. (BNA) 1990, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87199, 2016 WL 3676099 (D.D.C. 2016).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

REGGIE B. WALTON, United States District Judge

The plaintiffs, approximately 1700 former airline pilots, initiated this action against defendant Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (“Corporation”) under the Employment Retirement Income Security Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 1001-1461 (2012) (“ERISA”), asserting claims of breach of fiduciary duty, denial of benefits, and violations of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), and seeking certain declaratory and injunctive relief. See generally First Amended Complaint (“Am. Compl,”) ¶¶ 1-13, 63-156. Currently pending before the Court is the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s Motion To Dismiss and To Strike (“Def.’s Mot.”), in which the Corporation seeks to dismiss the plaintiffs’ breach of fiduciary duty claim (Claim One), and to strike the plaintiffs’ demands for attorney’s fees and for a jury trial. 1 Def.’s Mot. at 1. Upon consideration of the parties’ submissions, the Court concludes that *19 the Corporation’s motion to dismiss Claim One of the Amended'Complaint must be denied. However, the Court will grant the Corporation’s motions to strike the attorney’s fees and jury trial demands. 2

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Corporation’s Duties Under the ERISA

The ERISA was enacted in part to “ensure that employees and their beneficiaries would not be deprived of anticipated retirement benefits by the termination of pension plans before sufficient funds [had] been accumulated in the plans.” Pension Benefit Guar. Corp. v. R.A. Gray & Co., 467 U.S. 717, 720, 104 S.Ct. 2709, 81 L.Ed.2d 601 (1984). As part of this statutory goal, the ERISA created the Corporation—a component within the Department of Labor—to, inter alia, “provide for the timely and uninterrupted payment of pension benefits to participants and beneficiaries under plans to which this subchapter applies.” 29 U.S.C. § 1302(a)(2). The Corporation “administers and enforces Title IV of [the] ERISA.” Pension Benefit Guar. Corp. v. LTV Corp., 496 U.S. 633, 637, 110 S.Ct. 2668, 110 L.Ed.2d 579 (1990). As the Supreme Court explained:

When a plan covered under Title IV terminates with insufficient assets to satisfy its pension obligations to the employees, the [Corporation] becomes trustee of the plan, taking over the plan’s assets and liabilities. The [Corporation] then uses the plan’s assets to cover what it can of the benefit obligations. The [Corporation] then must add its own funds to ensure payment of most of the remaining “nonforfeitable” benefits, i.e., those benefits to which participants have earned entitlement under the plan terms as of the date of termination.

LTV Corp., 496 U.S. at 637, 110 S.Ct. 2668 (citing 29 U.S.C. §§ 1301, 1322, 1344).

B. Factual Background

This dispute originated with a September 2005 voluntary petition for bankruptcy filed by Delta Airlines, Inc. (“Delta”), which thereafter resulted in Delta not making contributions to the Delta Pilots Retirement Plan (“Plan”), a tax-qualified deferred benefit plan under the ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 28, 30, 33. The plaintiffs, former Delta pilots (or their spouses or estate executors) are participants and beneficiaries under the Plan. Id. ¶¶2, 29. Delta’s post-bankruptcy negotiations with the pilots’ union 3 regarding the Plan’s termination, id. ¶33, yielded an agreement in which the union “would receive $650 million in notes and a $2.1 billion allowed general non-priority unsecured claim ..., which Delta and [the union] intended to be used to ‘replace unfunded benefits under the ... Plan by using the proceeds to fund follow-on retirement plans and other payments or distributions to [active] pilots,” id. ¶ 34 (second alteration in original) (quoting Am. Compl., Exhibit (“Ex.”) A, at 2).

*20 The Corporation objected to the proposed agreement between Delta and the pilots’ union, asserting that it was “designed in substantial part to skirt [ERISA’s] safeguards.” Id. ¶ 35 (quoting Am. Compl., Ex. A, at 14). These safeguards are achieved through a six-tiered allocation scheme, in which benefits under a plan such as the Plan here are paid in order of statutory priority, which the Court will refer to as Categories 1 through 6. See id. ¶ 19; see also 29 U.S.C. § 1344(a)(1)—(6) (setting forth the order of priority a plan administrator is required to apply when allocating to participants the value of assets in a single-employer plan). Under the circumstances present here, “[Category 3] is the highest priority category ... [under which] benefits are reserved for those participants who were retirement-eligible at least three years pri- or to a plan’s termination, under the plan provisions as they existed five years prior to plan termination.” Am. Compl. ¶ 19. The proposed agreement between Delta and the pilots’ union allegedly would have “improperly allowed funds which should properly go to the [Corporation] in connection with [the] ERISA’s priority allocation scheme to leave the control of the plan sponsor/control group and thereby to fund pension benefits outside of [the] ERISA’s asset allocation scheme[ ] ....” Id. ¶ 35 (citing Am. Compl., Ex. A, at 14-15). “In essence, the [proposed agreement] would allow Delta and [the pilots’ union] to turn the asset allocation scheme on its head, putting younger active workers to the front of the line while relegating retirees living on a fixed income to the back.” Id.

Over the Corporation’s objections, the bankruptcy court approved the agreement between Delta and the pilots’ union, and the Corporation “appealed [that] ruling to the district court.” Id. ¶ 36. However, the Corporation later “withdrew” the appeal following the December 4, 2006 execution of a settlement agreement between Delta and the Corporation. Id. ¶ 39. Under the settlement agreement, the Corporation “received $225 million in notes, and a $2.2 billion unsecured bankruptcy claim.” Id. On December 20, 2006, the bankruptcy court approved the settlement agreement between Delta and the Corporation. Id. ¶ 41. The Plan “was retroactively terminated as of September 2, 2006 ..., and the [Corporation] became the [Retirement] Plan’s Trustee as of December 31, 2006.” Id. (italics omitted). The Corporation “obtained additional recoveries from Delta, which the [Corporation] initially valued as being worth $1,279,423.” Id. ¶45. The plaintiffs allege that they should have received a portion of these recoveries before active pilots, but represent that this did not occur because

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Barton v. Delfgauw
W.D. Washington, 2023
Gross v. GG Homes, Inc.
S.D. California, 2021
Nantkwest, Inc. v. Iancu
898 F.3d 1177 (Federal Circuit, 2018)
Lewis v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.
314 F. Supp. 3d 135 (D.C. Circuit, 2018)
White v. Hilton Hotels Retirement Plan
263 F. Supp. 3d 8 (District of Columbia, 2017)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
197 F. Supp. 3d 16, 62 Employee Benefits Cas. (BNA) 1990, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87199, 2016 WL 3676099, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lewis-v-pension-benefit-guaranty-corporation-dcd-2016.