Cobb v. Central States

• Decision Date: 22 August 2006
• Docket Number: No. 05-30906 Summary Calendar.,05-30906 Summary Calendar.
• Citation: 461 F.3d 632
• Parties: Daisy Estelle COBB, Widow of Oliver Ray Gibbs, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CENTRAL STATES, SOUTHWEST AND SOUTHEAST AREAS PENSION FUND, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

461 F.3d 632

Daisy Estelle COBB, Widow of Oliver Ray Gibbs, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CENTRAL STATES, SOUTHWEST AND SOUTHEAST AREAS PENSION FUND, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 05-30906 Summary Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

August 22, 2006.

Alvin D. Singletary, Slidell, LA, for Cobb.

Charles H. Lee, Cent. States Health & Welfare & Pension Funds, Rosemount, IL, J. David Forsyth, Sessions, Fishman & Nathan, New Orleans, LA, for Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Before SMITH, GARZA and PRADO, Circuit Judges.

JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

Daisy Cobb appeals an adverse benefit determination by Central States, Southwest and Southeast Areas Pension Plan ("Central States"). We vacate the judgment and remand with instruction to dismiss for want of subject matter jurisdiction.

I.

In about August 1979, Oliver Gibbs submitted an "Application for a Retirement Pension Benefit" to Central States stating that he was retiring on October 26, 1979. Central States is a multiemployer pension plan. At the time he submitted his application, Gibbs was married to, but separated for thirteen years from, Cobb. In his pension application, Gibbs represented under oath that his spouse was "deceased." Gibbs died in 1985. In 2002 Cobb submitted a claim for the Joint and Survivor Pension Benefit.

When he retired, Gibbs was eligible to receive an unreduced lifetime pension of $675.00 per month, with no pension benefits after his death (the "Lifetime Benefit"). Central States' Pension Plan also allowed a participant to receive or reject the Joint and Survivor Pension Benefit ("JSO") if he met the three eligibility criteria for this plan. Generally, this benefit provides a reduced pension to the participant, and 50% of the reduced lifetime pension as a lifetime monthly income to his/ her spouse after the participant's death.

Gibbs would have received a reduced lifetime pension of $588.60 per month, but only by meeting several conditions, including that he had to be married at the time of his retirement. The plan provided that

[i]n order to be eligible for this pension benefit, you MUST meet each of the following requirements AT THE TIME OF YOUR RETIREMENT:

—you MUST be married; and

—you MUST be at least age 55; and

—you MUST be eligible to receive a Twenty-Year Service Pension Benefit, an Early Retirement Pension Benefit or a Vested Pension Benefit from this Plan.

Because Gibbs represented that his spouse was deceased, he did not meet the criteria, so he was never sent an election form for the JSO. He started receiving unreduced lifetime benefits in November 1979. In February 1981 (before Gibbs's death), Cobb contacted Central States and advised it that she was Gibbs's spouse. Cobb stated that she and Gibbs had been separated for "about 15 years" but that they were legally married. Cobb also stated that Gibbs was receiving a pension benefit and that she wanted to receive some of it. Central States informed Cobb that she was not eligible to receive any part of Gibbs's pension because the Pension Plan provided that "[a]ll Pension Benefits provided by this Plan shall be paid directly to the Pensioner, and not to any creditor or other person not eligible for such benefits."

In 2002, Cobb requested benefits from Central States by submitting an Application for Death Benefit. In September, Central States advised Cobb that she was not eligible to receive any benefits because Gibbs did not elect the "Joint and 50% Surviving Spouse Option" when he retired in 1979. Cobb appealed this adverse benefit determination to Central States' Benefits Claim Appeals Committee.

In April 2003, Central States advised her that her appeal was rejected because Gibbs had not elected to have his benefit paid in the JSO form when he retired. Cobb exhausted the administrative appeals process when her appeal was considered by the trustees, who determined that "the communications, acts and omissions by the late Oliver Ray Gibbs, at and around the time of his 1978 [sic] retirement, induced the Pension Fund to rely, and the Pension Fund did in fact actually and reasonably rely, upon his intention to reject the JSO." Cobb appealed this decision in court, but her claim was rejected, so she appeals.

II.

Cobb asserts district court jurisdiction under section 502(a) of ERISA, 29 U.S.C. 1132(a). That provision, however, limits those who can maintain suit under the statute to "participants," "beneficiaries," or "fiduciaries." Coleman v. Champion Int'l Corp., 992 F.2d 530, 533 (5th Cir.1993). Because "[w]here Congress has defined the parties who may bring a civil action founded on ERISA, we are loathe [sic] to ignore the legislature's specificity," standing to bring an action founded on ERISA is a "jurisdictional" matter.¹

Accordingly, the issue of whether a particular plaintiff falls within one of the three enumerated classes of litigants (participants, beneficiaries or fiduciaries) is a jurisdictional one. Hermann, 845 F.2d at 1289. This court has "hewed to a literal construction of § 1132(a)" on this issue. Id. (emphasis added).

Because the issue of standing is one of subject matter jurisdiction, we raised it sua sponte and directed the parties to submit briefing on the issue. Although the basis for inclusion in one of the three jurisdictional classes of ERISA litigants is uncertain from Cobb's complaint, she claims in her appellate brief and supplemental briefing that she is a "beneficiary" to whom the plan trustees owed a fiduciary duty.²

ERISA defines "beneficiary" as "a person designated by a participant, or by the terms of any employee benefit plan, who is or may become entitled to a benefit thereunder." ERISA § 3(8), 29 U.S.C. § 1002(8) (emphasis added). In favor of jurisdiction, the parties cite a case that involved the definition of "participant," Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch, 489 U.S. 101, 117-18, 109 S.Ct. 948, 103 L.Ed.2d 80 (1989), which held that "to establish that he or she `may become eligible' for benefits, a claimant must have a colorable claim that (1) he or she will prevail in a suit for benefits, or that (2) eligibility requirements will be fulfilled in the future." Id. (emphasis added). The parties explain that given that the definition of beneficiary, like the definition of participant, involves the term "is or may become entitled to a benefit," Cobb has standing because she has a "colorable claim" that she may be entitled to benefits. We disagree.

This case involves the definition of "beneficiary," not "participant." Although both require "colorable" entitlement to benefits, the definition of beneficiary additionally requires something that the definition of participant does not: that the "beneficiary" be "designated" as such by the participant or by the terms of the plan.³ Post-Firestone, this court has continued to adhere to a "literal construction" of the three classes of plaintiffs with standing, and we have refused to read the "designation" requirement out of the statutory definition: A beneficiary must prove both a "colorable claim" under Firestone and a "designation" by the participant or the terms of the plan: A beneficiary is "a person designated by a participant, or by the terms of an employee benefit plan, who is or may become entitled to a benefit thereunder." 29 U.S.C. § 1002(8) (emphasis added).

In Coleman we held that a pension plan participant's son, who was his descendant, heir at law, and the representative of his estate, was not a "beneficiary" of the plan with standing to sue under ERISA because (1) the participant never designated the son to receive benefits under the plan, and (2) the terms of the plan, which directed the Trustees to designate a beneficiary from the group of the decedent's spouse, descendants, heirs at law, and representatives of the estate, if there were any benefits "payable," could not designate a beneficiary, because there were no benefits payable (The participant received benefits under the "Lifetime Only" option, as here.):

Charlie Coleman elected to remain under the normal Lifetime Only Income payment option. While this Plan option provides the greatest amount of monthly income, the Plan states clearly that, under this option, at the time of the participant's death, all pension benefits cease. Because no pension benefits were payable at the time of Charlie Coleman's death, the Retirement Committee was not, and is not now, authorized to name a beneficiary from the list in Section 4.2. As such, the terms of Plan Section 4.2 do not afford Coleman beneficiary status as contemplated in § 1132. Coupled with the fact that Charlie Coleman did not name his son as his beneficiary, this conclusion forecloses any statutory basis for Coleman's assertion of standing.

Coleman, 992 F.2d at 533-34.

Under this precedent, Cobb is not a beneficiary. Gibbs never personally "designated [Cobb] or anyone else as beneficiary of his Plan assets." Id. at 533. "[T]herefore, [Cobb's] assertion of beneficiary status rests upon the language and terms contained in the Plan." Id.

In its letter brief, Central States admits that the plan does not define the term "beneficiary." In her letter brief, Cobb also acknowledges that the plan does not specifically define the surviving spouse as the beneficiary. She argues, however, that because the plan allows for benefits to be paid to surviving spouses of individuals receiving benefits under the JSO plan, she is or may become entitled to a benefit under the plan, which makes her a beneficiary. Again, the fact that Cobb is or may become entitled to a benefit does not necessarily prove the separate requirement that she be "designated" as a beneficiary by the terms of the plan.

Assuming, arguendo, that entitlement to benefits under the JSO would count as a "designation," Cobb's claim fails for the same reason that the son's claim failed in Coleman — the plan plainly provides that if...