Raya v. Barka

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUL 28 2026

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

ROBERT EDWARD RAYA, No. 25-2394 Plaintiff-counter-defendant-Appellant, D.C. No. 3:19-cv-02295-WQH v. MEMORANDUM* DAVID BARKA; NOORI BARKA; EVELYN BARKA; CALBIOTECH, INC.; CALBIOTECH, INC. 401(k) PROFIT SHARING PLAN; CALBIOTECH, INC. PENSION PLAN, Defendants-counter-claimants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California William Q. Hayes, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted March 31, 2026** San Francisco, California

Before: NGUYEN, MILLER, and COLLINS, Circuit Judges. Plaintiff-Appellant Robert Edward Raya appeals the district court’s

judgment in favor of Defendants-Appellees David Barka; Noori Barka; Evelyn

Barka; Calbiotech, Inc.; the Calbiotech, Inc. 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan; and the

Calbiotech, Inc. Pension Plan (collectively “Defendants”) on (1) Raya’s claims

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes that this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) against

Defendants and (2) Defendants’ counterclaim against Raya for breach of contract.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm in part, reverse in part,

and remand.

I

This lawsuit follows Raya’s termination from Calbiotech, Inc.

(“Calbiotech”), where, except for a few months, he was employed as a scientist

from 2008 to 2016. Raya asserted various claims under ERISA, including denial

of benefits, breach of fiduciary duty, and retaliation claims, all relating to the

administration of Calbiotech’s 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan (“401(k) Plan”) and

Calbiotech’s Pension Plan (“Pension Plan”). Defendants filed a counterclaim

against Raya, contending that Raya breached a Separation Agreement and General

Release (“Agreement”)—in which Raya allegedly released all of his then-existing

legal claims against Defendants in exchange for a $12,500 severance payment—by

initiating two lawsuits, including the instant action, as well as by lodging at least

one complaint with the United States Department of Labor (“DOL”).

In pretrial rulings, the district court granted summary judgment to

Defendants with respect to certain claims and denied it as to others. After a bench

trial on the remaining claims, the district court entered judgment in favor of

Defendants. Raya timely appealed.

2 II

We first address Raya’s contention that the district court erred in finding,

after the bench trial, that Raya had knowingly and voluntarily waived his then-

remaining ERISA claims. We review the district court’s findings of fact after a

bench trial for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. Montana v. Talen

Mont., LLC, 130 F.4th 675, 686 (9th Cir. 2025); see also FED. R. CIV. P. 52(a)(6).

We review the district court’s evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. United

States v. Shih, 73 F.4th 1077, 1096 (9th Cir. 2023).

A

Raya argues that the district court improperly admitted and relied on various

exhibits that he contends had not been produced in discovery and were instead

untimely produced only two weeks before trial. The district court reasonably

concluded that the relevant challenged exhibits “were already in Plaintiff’s

possession during the discovery period and/or are emails and correspondence sent

to or from Plaintiff” and that, as a result, “Plaintiff ha[d] not demonstrated

prejudice.” In particular, the six challenged exhibits that Raya claims played a key

role in the district court’s findings of fact were all emails to or from Raya.

Moreover, the one exhibit that the district court cited specifically in its

voluntariness analysis was shown to Raya during his February 22, 2022 deposition

3 and was also in the original set of trial exhibits that had been produced earlier.1

Accordingly, the district court permissibly concluded that Raya had failed to

demonstrate prejudice from any asserted discovery violation, and it therefore did

not abuse its discretion in admitting and relying on the challenged exhibits.

B

In evaluating whether a waiver and release of ERISA claims was knowing

and voluntary, “courts should consider the following non-exhaustive factors”:

(1) the employee’s education and business experience; (2) the employee’s input in negotiating the terms of the settlement; (3) the clarity of the release language; (4) the amount of time the employee had for deliberation before signing the release; (5) whether the employee actually read the release and considered its terms before signing it; (6) whether the employee knew of his rights under the plan and the relevant facts when he signed the release; (7) whether the employee had an opportunity to consult with an attorney before signing the release; (8) whether the consideration given in exchange for the release exceeded the benefits to which the employee was already entitled by contract or law; and (9) whether the employee’s release was induced by improper conduct on the fiduciary’s part.

Schuman v. Microchip Tech. Inc., 139 F.4th 1045, 1053 (9th Cir. 2025).2

The district court did not err in holding that the factor concerning

1 Likewise, the Agreement itself had concededly been produced to Raya earlier in other forms. 2 While Schuman was unavailable to the district court at the time of its ruling, our review of the substance of the district court’s waiver analysis confirms that it covers all nine factors enumerated in Schuman.

4 consultation with a lawyer weighed in favor of finding that Raya’s waiver was

knowing and voluntary. After Raya signed the Agreement and accepted a check

for $12,500, but before the expiration of the seven-day period during which he

could still rescind the Agreement, he reached out to two separate lawyers. He

consulted one lawyer regarding his termination from Calbiotech, and that lawyer

referred Raya to an ERISA lawyer, who conducted a “lengthy interview,” in which

Raya “revealed everything [he] knew about Calbiotech’s retirement plans and . . .

[his] thoughts and strategies about the best way to recover [his] benefits.” Raya

claims that, because the ERISA lawyer thereafter “never called back” or replied to

his follow-up email, this consultation does not favor a finding that Raya’s

acceptance of the Agreement was knowing and voluntary. But the district court

considered these points and properly concluded that, “even if [Raya] did not

receive helpful advice from the lawyers he consulted,” his “consultation” with

counsel still “demonstrate[d] that [he] had an awareness of his potential claim for

benefits and other relief at that time” and that he was giving up such claims by

accepting the Agreement. The district court also noted that, prior to signing the

Agreement, Raya had contacted the DOL to make a complaint about Calbiotech’s

operation of its 401(k) Plan. The district court did not err in concluding that these

“contact[s] with attorneys and the DOL demonstrate[] Plaintiff’s awareness of his

right to seek independent advice and [his] willingness to exercise that right,” and

5 that this consideration “weighs in favor of a finding that the waiver was knowing

and voluntary.”

Raya also argues that the 401(k) Plan documents were withheld from him

until after he had signed the Agreement and that this factor weighs against a

finding that his acceptance of the Agreement was knowing and voluntary. But the

record confirms that Raya knew that he lacked the 401(k) Plan documents when he

signed the Agreement, because he made another request for a copy of those

documents that same day. Raya was thus aware both that he had potential ERISA

claims concerning the 401(k) plan and that he did not have full information

concerning those possible claims, but he nonetheless gave those claims up. The

district court therefore properly concluded that Raya knowingly and voluntarily

waived his then-existing legal claims, including his remaining claims arising under

the 401(k) Plan and his ERISA retaliation claim.3

III

Defendants on appeal do not contend that Raya’s waiver of claims in the

Agreement extends to the Pension-Plan-related claims that had been dismissed on

summary judgment before trial. We therefore turn to Raya’s challenges to that

ruling on the merits. We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de

3 Because Raya’s waiver provides a sufficient basis to affirm the district court’s judgment rejecting these claims, we need not address any of Raya’s arguments concerning the district court’s alternative merits-based grounds for rejecting Raya’s retaliation claim.

6 novo, see Animal Legal Def. Fund v. U.S. Food & Drug Admin., 836 F.3d 987, 988

(9th Cir. 2016), and a denial of a motion for reconsideration for abuse of

discretion, see United States v. Lefler, 880 F.2d 233, 235 (9th Cir. 1989).

In granting summary judgment in favor of Defendants with respect to all

claims arising under the Pension Plan, the district court placed loadbearing weight

on an alleged 2008 Amendment that limited the class of eligible participants in the

Pension Plan to seven named individuals, not including Raya. According to

Defendants, Calbiotech simultaneously adopted, on the same day in December

2008 (with both documents having an effective date of September 1, 2008), (1) an

“Adoption Agreement” establishing the Pension Plan (which defined “Eligible

Employees” to include, with specified exceptions, “All Employees”); and (2) an

“Amendment” to the Plan that excluded from eligibility all employees other than

seven named individuals. Rejecting Raya’s challenges to the authenticity and

legality of the Amendment, the district court concluded that, because Raya was not

one of the seven listed eligible employees, he lacked standing to assert any claims

concerning the Pension Plan.

Raya contends that the district court erred in holding that there was no

triable issue as to whether the Amendment had been backdated. In his opposition

to Defendants’ summary judgment motion, Raya argued that several items of

evidence supported an inference that the Amendment had been backdated. In

7 particular, Raya noted that one of the seven eligible employees listed by name in

the Amendment was “an employee who was unknown to the company before she

was hired for the first time in 2011.” In support of that contention, Raya submitted

a Pension Plan participant statement (“Participant Statement”) of “Sabreen

Najeeb”—a person listed in the Amendment—which showed that Najeeb began

her employment with Calbiotech on March 14, 2011 and began participating in the

Pension Plan on September 1, 2012.4 Raya also noted that (1) when he requested

and was sent the Pension Plan documents, the Amendment was not included; and

(2) when the Plan Administrator denied his request to be enrolled in the Pension

Plan, it purportedly did not rely on the Amendment.

Without explicitly addressing any of Raya’s specific challenges to the 2008

Amendment’s authenticity, the district court held that there was no triable issue as to

that authenticity. In reaching this conclusion, the court relied on a sworn

Declaration submitted by “David Barka, the Vice President of Calbiotech and a

Trustee of the Pension Plan,” asserting that the Amendment “was adopted/executed

4 We reject Defendants’ evidentiary objection to the Participant Statement raised in their opposition to Raya’s motion for summary judgment. In response to that objection (which questioned whether this document was really part of an official form submitted by the Pension Plan to the DOL), Raya submitted under seal the entire Form 5500 to which that Participant Statement was attached, explaining that it was the official document submitted by the Pension Plan to the DOL. Absent contrary evidence (and Defendants presented none), Raya’s showing was sufficient to establish that the facts concerning the timing of Najeeb’s employment and participation could “be presented in a form that would be admissible as evidence,” which is all that Rule 56 requires. See FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c)(2).

8 by Calbiotech concurrently with the Adoption Agreement on December 28, 2008.”

The district court summarily stated that, in its view, Raya “ha[d] not come forward

with any evidence that the 2008 Amendment is not authentic or that the dates listed

in the 2008 Amendment are false.” Thereafter, in rejecting Raya’s first motion for

reconsideration, the district court rejected, on the merits, Raya’s contention that the

failure to produce the Amendment in response to Raya’s request for the Pension

Plan documents supported an inference of backdating. As the district court

explained, the cover letter accompanying the delivery of those documents stated that

only “certain documents” as opposed to “all documents” were being produced.

Raya subsequently raised, in a further motion for reconsideration, the district court’s

failure to discuss the Amendment’s inclusion of Sabreen Najeeb, but the district

court summarily denied that motion, stating that its previous orders had “thoroughly

considered the evidence and arguments presented by” Raya.

In response to Raya’s evidence indicating that the Amendment covered a

person first employed in 2011, Defendants did not come forward with any

evidence that explained why the Amendment would mention a person who was not

an employee in 2008. Instead, Defendants emphasized that Raya had not shown

that Sabreen Najeeb was “unknown” to Calbiotech in 2008. Defendants likewise

argue on appeal that Raya’s evidence “does not eliminate or preclude the

possibility” that the Amendment was executed in 2008 and that it “nam[ed]

9 prospective future employees who may be hired by the Company at some point in

the future and who may become eligible to participate in the Pension Plan upon

their satisfaction of its eligibility requirements.” But Defendants failed to come

forward with any evidence to support this speculative explanation, even though

such evidence presumably would be readily available to them. In the absence of

any evidence explaining why the Amendment mentions a person who was not

hired until years later, we conclude that a reasonable trier of fact could infer that

the Amendment was backdated and that Barka’s declaration’s contrary assertion is

not credible. The credibility of that declaration cannot be assumed when, viewing

the evidence in the light most favorable to the party opposing Defendants’

summary judgment motion (i.e., Raya), a contrary inference is permissible. See

Hittle v. City of Stockton, 101 F.4th 1000, 1005 (9th Cir. 2024). And because the

district court’s rejection of Raya’s Pension-Plan claims rested dispositively on the

view that the Amendment was executed in 2008, we reverse the district court’s

summary judgment in Defendants’ favor as to those claims.

IV

Raya appeals two rulings by the district court denying his pretrial motions

for sanctions. See McCright v. Santoki, 976 F.2d 568, 569–70 (9th Cir. 1992)

(holding that an order denying sanctions is not immediately appealable but is

appealable from the final judgment). We review discovery rulings, including those

10 involving discovery sanctions, for an abuse of discretion. See Ingenco Holdings,

LLC v. Ace Am. Ins. Co., 921 F.3d 803, 808 (9th Cir. 2019).

The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Raya’s motion for

sanctions in connection with Defendants’ alleged interference with subpoenas that

Raya had served on three non-parties. At a discovery conference, the magistrate

judge explicitly warned Raya, before he served the subpoenas, that documents

received after the fact-discovery cut-off date might not be allowed at trial. Raya

proceeded to serve the subpoenas with a requested response date that was one

week after the discovery cut-off. Two days after the discovery cut-off (and 12

days after the subpoenas had been served), Defendants’ counsel sent a letter to the

subpoenas’ recipients informing them that they objected to the subpoenas and

requesting that they “not produce any documents to the requesting party prior to

the challenge hereto being resolved by the Court or the subpoena being withdrawn

by the plaintiff.” Nonetheless, one of the three recipients produced documents in

response to its subpoena. Given this context, the district court acted within its

discretion in holding that Defendants’ letter—which was sent after the discovery

cut-off had passed—did not in any way interfere with the discovery process within

the deadline set by the court and that sanctions therefore were not warranted.

We also conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by

deferring, and ultimately denying, Raya’s motions for sanctions based on the

11 allegation that Defendants introduced forged 401(k) Plan Documents. The district

court permissibly deferred consideration of Raya’s motion for sanctions until after

trial on the ground that the “issue of whether Defendants falsified or misrepresented

various plan documents is inextricably intertwined with the merits of Plaintiffs’

claim.” See McCright, 976 F.2d at 569 (noting that the propriety of sanctions may

become clearer “[a]s the litigation continues and a fuller picture of opposing

counsel’s conduct emerges”). After the trial, the court acknowledged that Raya had

“identified anomalies with Calbiotech’s 401(k) Plan documents.” In particular,

Raya noted that there were two versions of the same exact 401(k) Plan document,

and in one of them, the “original effective date” of the plan was listed as “9-1-2011,”

but in the other, the original “9-1-2011” date has been almost entirely covered with

the different date of “9-1-2008.” At trial, Barka testified at some length about the

discrepancy, and in its post-trial findings, the district court explicitly credited

Barka’s testimony that the altered document was prepared by a since-deceased

person who was apparently correcting a typographical error in the original

document. The district court therefore expressly found that Raya had “failed to

prove that any individual Defendant or employee or agent of Calbiotech

intentionally attempted to mislead [Raya] or conceal the existence of a claim against

any Defendant.” Because that finding is not clearly erroneous, the district court

acted within its discretion in declining to impose sanctions based on this allegation.

12 * * *

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s grant of summary

judgment dismissing Raya’s Pension-Plan claims, and we affirm the judgment in

all other respects.

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND REMANDED.