Richards v. Fleetboston Financial Corp.

238 F.R.D. 345, 66 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 951, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77154, 2006 WL 2979373
District Court, D. Connecticut·Decided October 16, 2006·No. Civil Action No. 3:04-cv-1638 (JCH)·Published·Cited by 2 cases

Opinion

RULING ON PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR AMENDED CLASS CERTIFICATION [DOC. NO. 155]

HALL, District Judge.

1. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Donna C. Richards is an employee of defendant FleetBoston Financial Corp. (“FleetBoston”), a participant in the defendant FleetBoston Pension Plan (“Amended Plan”), and a former participant in Fleet’s former pension plan, a traditional defined benefits plan (“Traditional Plan”).1 This Ruling presumes familiarity with the court’s previous Rulings on class certification [Doc. No. Ill] and on the defendants’ motions to dismiss [Doc. Nos. 112 & 148]. The earlier Rulings described the terms of the Amended Plan that are at issue in this case and the ways in which they are alleged to have violated ERISA. In the Ruling on defendants’ second motion to dismiss [Doc. No. 148], the court dismissed Count II of plaintiffs Amended Complaint [Doc. No. 124] and that part of Count V premised on the Summary Plan Description’s (“SPD”) lack of “an explicit explanation of how benefit accruals under the plan are reduced by advancing age.”2 Amended Complaint (“Am.Compl”.) at 1151. It denied the second motion to dismiss with respect to the remaining parts of Count V.

Richards seeks to amend the class certification granted by this court on March 31, 2006 [Doc. No. Ill], which certified the proposed class pursuant to Rule 23(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. With respect to Count V of her Amended Complaint alleging breach of fiduciary duty, Richards now wishes to also certify a class for this claim under Rule 23(b)(2). Additionally, she seeks to certify this lawsuit as a class action pursuant to Rule 23(b)(1)(A) and (B) as to all of those claims not previously dismissed by this court (Counts I (age discrimination), III (§ 204(h) notice), IV(SPD), and V (fiduciary duty)). Fleet not only objects to the plaintiffs proposed expansion of certification, but [348]*348also asks the court to amend its prior ruling so as to decertify the SPD class (Count IV) under Rule 23(b)(2).

As discussed in the court’s previous Rulings, the Amended Plan uses hypothetical cash balance accounts to calculate retirement benefits for its participants. Each quarter, a certain amount is added to an employee’s hypothetical cash balance account, calculated as the sum of a certain percentage of the portion of that employee’s compensation that falls below the social security wage base, a higher percentage of the employee’s compensation above the social security wage base, and an interest credit. For participants who had participated in the Traditional Plan before its amendment and who were not at least age 50 with 15 years of vesting service as of December 31, 1996, the Amended Plan calculates retirement benefits using a “greater of’ formula. A retiring participant receives the greater of the “frozen” benefit derived from the Traditional Plan terms and the hypothetical cash balance account balance The frozen benefit is often larger than the opening hypothetical cash balance account, because the opening balance for the cash balance account is calculated as the frozen Traditional Plan benefit minus early retirement subsidies. The idea that an employee covered by these terms does not actually accrue any new benefits under the Amended Plan until the value of the hypothetical cash balance account exceeds that of the frozen Traditional Plan benefit is known as the “wear-away” effect. It is allegedly exacerbated by an actuarial assumption and interest rate used in calculating the opening balance of the cash balance account.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

An order certifying a class “may be altered or amended before final judgment.” Fed. R.Civ.P. 23(c)(1)(C). A district court also has the discretion to decertify a class by amending the order granting the certification, “if the court finds that certification should not have been granted or is no longer appropriate.” 5 Moore’s Federal Practice § 23.87(Matthew Bender 3d ed.). Richards bears the burden of showing that the class she has proposed meets the requirements for class certification. See Caridad v. Metro-North Commuter Railroad, 191 F.3d 283, 291 (2d Cir.1999); Consol. Rail Corp. v. Town of Hyde Park, 47 F.3d 473, 484 (2d Cir.1995). In ruling on a motion for class certification at the present stage of the litigation, the court accepts the factual allegations of the Complaint as true. Shelter Realty Corp. v. Allied Maintenance Corp., 574 F.2d 656, 661 n. 15 (2d Cir.1978) (internal citations omitted). It may also consider affidavits that a plaintiff has submitted in support of her motion for class certification, see id., and affidavits a defendant has submitted in opposition to the motion for class certification, see, e.g., Panzirer v. Wolf, 663 F.2d 365, 368-69 (2d Cir.1981), vacated as moot, Price Wa-terhouse v. Panzirer, 459 U.S. 1027,103 S.Ct. 434, 74 L.Ed.2d 594 (1982).

Before certifying a class, the court must conduct a “rigorous analysis” and be “persuaded that the prerequisites of Rule 23(a) have been met.” Gen. Tel. Co. v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 161, 102 S.Ct. 2364, 72 L.Ed.2d 740 (1982).

Nevertheless, a motion for class certification is not an occasion for examination of the merits of the case. See Sirota v. Solitron Devices, Inc., 673 F.2d 566, 570-72 (2d Cir.1982). As the Supreme Court has stated, “[N]othing in either the language or history of Rule 23 ... gives a court any authority to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the merits of a suit in order to determine whether it may be maintained as a class action.” Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 177, 94 S.Ct. 2140, 40 L.Ed.2d 732 ... (1974).

Caridad v. Metro-North Commuter R.R., 191 F.3d 283, 291 (2d Cir.1999). The Second Circuit has held that “Rule 23 is given liberal rather than restrictive construction, and courts are to adopt a standard of flexibility.” Marisol A. v. Giuliani, 126 F.3d 372, 377 (2d Cir.1997) (internal citation omitted).

III. DISCUSSION

As discussed in detail in this court’s previous ruling on class certification [Doe. No. Ill], in order to certify a class a litigant must satisfy the four requirements of Rule 23(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure [349]*349and demonstrate that the proposed class action fits into one of the three categories under Rule 23(b). Green v. Wolf Corp., 406 F.2d 291, 298 (2d Cir.1968). In analyzing a class certification motion, “a judge must look somewhere between the pleading and the fruits of discovery.” Sirota v. Solitron Devices, Inc., 673 F.2d 566, 571-72 (2d Cir. 1982). The court should accept the allegations in the complaint as true and should not conduct a preliminary inquiry into the merits of the case.

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Richards v. Fleetboston Financial Corp., 238 F.R.D. 345, 66 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 951, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77154, 2006 WL 2979373 (D. Conn. 2006).

238 F.R.D. 345 (Richards v. Fleetboston Financial Corp.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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