Szoke v. United Parcel Service of America, Inc.

398 F. App'x 145
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedOctober 7, 2010
Docket09-3513
StatusUnpublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 398 F. App'x 145 (Szoke v. United Parcel Service of America, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Szoke v. United Parcel Service of America, Inc., 398 F. App'x 145 (6th Cir. 2010).

Opinions

SAMUEL H. MAYS, JR., District Judge.

Plaintiffs James Szoke and eighteen fellow employees1 appeal the judgment of the district court granting summary judgment to Defendant United Parcel Service of America, Inc. (“UPS America”) on their claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B) and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621 et seq. Appellants argue that the district court erred by 1) finding that ERISA did not bar UPS America from switching Appellants from one pension plan to another, 2) refusing to allow Appellants to amend their Amended Complaint to add United Parcel Service, Inc. (“UPS Ohio”) as a defendant, and 3) granting summary judgment to UPS America on their ADEA claim. For the following reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

I.

Appellants all work or worked as delivery center clerks for UPS Ohio and began working for the company between 1959 and 1989. (Amended Compl., Dkt. No. 14, ¶¶ 12-31.) Since 1974, the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters, Local 407 has represented all of UPS Ohio’s clerical employees. (Compl., Dkt. No. 1, ¶ 2.) A series of collective bargaining agreements has governed Appellants’ terms of employment with UPS Ohio, including their pension benefits. Because Appellants are Ohio-based employees, both the Teamsters’ national agreement with UPS Ohio and a local agreement, known as the “Ohio Rider,” govern Appellants’ pension benefits. (See, e.g., Administrative Record at 26.) (“Admin.Rec.”) All UPS Ohio clerks began to participate in the UPS Retirement Plan in 1976. (Admin. Rec. at 147-263.) The Retirement Plan guaranteed that Appellants would receive a set monthly pension based on their number of years with UPS Ohio. It also capped Appellants’ maximum monthly benefits. The Teamsters and UPS Ohio negotiated the maximum pension amount and raised the cap periodically. (See Admin. Rec. at 24 (noting that the cap increased from $1,000 per month to $1,100 per month under the agreement for the period beginning August 1,1993).)

On September 1, 1995, Appellants ceased accruing additional benefits under the Retirement Plan and transferred to the UPS Pension Plan. (Admin. Rec. at 53.) That transfer occurred in the middle of the period covered by the collective bargaining agreements for August 1, 1993 [148]*148to July 31, 1997. (Id. at 24.) Although no document dated September 1, 1995, reflects that the parties agreed to a transfer from the Retirement Plan to the Pension Plan, on October 13, 1995, all UPS Ohio clerks were invited to attend a presentation that would explain their new benefits. (Id. at 299-317.) The presentation highlighted what UPS Ohio viewed as improvements to Appellants’ benefits. Specifically, the maximum monthly pension benefit increased from $1,100 to $1,500 under the Pension Plan. (Id. at 309.) The presentation also noted that “your bargaining representatives and numerous Teamster employees have made it known that they wanted to see UPS play a bigger role in helping you provide for your retirement.” (Id. at 300.) To accommodate this request by union representatives and employees for better benefits, UPS Ohio agreed “to allow Ohio Teamsters to participate in the UPS Pension Plan instead of the UPS Retirement Plan.” (Id.)

On December 21, 1995, the board of directors of UPS America, a subsidiary of UPS Ohio that serves as the plan sponsor for both the Retirement and Pension Plans, formally adopted an amendment reflecting the transfer to the Pension Plan. (Id. at 145.) The resolution noted that the effective date for the change was September 1, 1995, and that UPS America acted “to allow full-time employees represented for purposes of collective bargaining by the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters — Ohio Rider to participate in the [Pension] Plan.” (Id.) The Teamsters signed an agreement with UPS Ohio on January 19, 1996, recognizing that “[e]mployees will remain in a United Parcel Service Health and Welfare and Pension Plan unless dictated otherwise by contract language (including the Ohio Rider).” (Id. at 28A.)2 The collective bargaining agreement for the period from August 1,1997 to July 31, 2002, specifically referred to the “UPS Pension Plan” and noted that the parties, through negotiation, had agreed to raise the maximum monthly pension benefit to $1,750 from its previous cap of $1,500. (Id. at 33.) Employees also received individual notice of these enhanced benefits under the Pension Plan. (See id. at 44 (letter to Plaintiff Cecelia Miller).)

Beginning in 1998, some of the Ohio clerks became unhappy with their pension benefits. (See id. at 48.) The union acknowledged that it had “over-looked” the clerks in prior contract negotiations, but urged them to “stay mad until the next contract is negotiated.” (Id. at 47-48.) When the time approached to negotiate the collective bargaining agreement and Ohio Rider for August 1, 2002 to July 31, 2007, the UPS Ohio clerks wrote their union representatives and urged them to negotiate a better pension benefit that would not be reduced based on the employees’ receipt of Social Security benefits. (Id. at 48-51.) Unsatisfied with the results of the negotiations and convinced that they would have received a larger benefit had they remained in the UPS Retirement Plan, Appellants filed suit against UPS America in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. Appellants alleged that UPS America had violated ERISA by switching their pension benefits without their knowledge or their union’s consent. (Amended Compl. ¶¶ 39-44.) Appellants asked the district court to declare that they were never lawfully enrolled in the UPS Pension Plan and to calculate their benefits under the Retirement Plan. (Id. ¶¶ 49-50.) Appellants also alleged that the effect of the change in plan was to discriminate against [149]*149older employees, in violation of the ADEA.3 (Id. ¶¶ 53-59.)

The district court decided that only one of the Appellants, Cecelia Miller, had retired from UPS Ohio and consequently was due benefits currently. The parties agreed that the benefit calculation for Miller “would be representative of all retirees, present or future.” Szoke v. UPS of Am., Inc., No. L03CV1628, 2006 WL 2792161, at *1, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69325, at *4 (N.D.Ohio Sept. 26, 2006). The district court, therefore, had the parties submit Miller’s claim for additional benefits to the plan administrator so that she could exhaust her administrative remedies. The administrator rejected her claim that it should determine her benefits under the Retirement Plan and denied her subsequent administrative appeal of that decision. (Admin. Rec. at 1-3, 53-55.) After the conclusion of the administrative review process, the district court affirmed the administrator’s determination, finding that its benefit calculation was not arbitrary or capricious. Szoke, 2006 WL 2792161, at *6-7, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69325, at *17-20. The district court later granted summary judgment to UPS America on the remaining Appellants’ ERISA claims because the same analysis applied to the other eighteen Appellants. (Order, Dkt. No.

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398 F. App'x 145, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/szoke-v-united-parcel-service-of-america-inc-ca6-2010.