Production and Maintenance Employees' Local 504 v. Roadmaster Corp.
| Citation | 954 F.2d 1397 |
| Decision Date | 06 March 1992 |
| Docket Number | 90-2698,Nos. 89-1464,s. 89-1464 |
| Parties | , 22 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1, 14 Employee Benefits Cas. 2345 PRODUCTION AND MAINTENANCE EMPLOYEES' LOCAL 504, Laborers' International Union of North America, and Terry Groves, President of the Production and Maintenance Employees' Local 504 as a Participant in the Retirement Benefit Plan for Hourly-Paid Employees of Roadmaster Corporation, Plaintiffs-Appellees, Cross-Appellants, v. ROADMASTER CORPORATION, The Retirement Benefit Plan for Hourly-Paid Employees of Roadmaster Corporation, George C. Nebel and Robert O. Zinnen, as Directors of Roadmaster Corporation and Members of the Pension Finance Committee of the Plan and Thomas N. Krukonis, as the administrator and member of the Pension Finance Committee of the Plan, Defendants-Appellants, Cross-Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit) |
Murphy Hart, Hart & Hart, Benton, Ill., Terese M. Connerton (argued), Theodore T. Green, James S. Ray, Connerton, Ray & Simon, Washington, D.C., for plaintiffs-appellees, cross-appellants.
David F. Loeffler (argued), Thomas P. Krukowski, Krukowski & Costello, Milwaukee, Wis., Kurtis B. Reeg, Belleville, Ill., for defendants-appellants, cross-appellees.
Before COFFEY and MANION, Circuit Judges, and WILL, * Senior District Judge.
The defendants, Roadmaster Corporation, the Retirement Benefit Plan for Roadmaster's hourly employees, two of Roadmaster's directors, and its plan administrator appeal the district court's decision finding that an amendment Roadmaster made to the plan violated §§ 204(g) and (h) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. § 1054(g, h). The plaintiffs, Roadmaster's employees' union and one of its members, appeal the district court's decision declining to award the costs and attorneys' fees they incurred in their suit against Roadmaster. We affirm the district court's judgment against Roadmaster but reverse the district court's decision not to award the plaintiffs their costs and attorneys' fees.
In late March 1986, George Webel and Robert Zinnen, two of Roadmaster's directors, concluded that Roadmaster's retirement plan for its hourly employees should cease accruing benefits to employees as of March 31, 1986. Roadmaster, however, did not officially amend the plan until June 27, 1986 when its Board of Directors unanimously passed a written amendment that retroactively ceased accrual of benefits under the plan effective March 31.
Section 204(h) provides that a defined benefit plan (as was Roadmaster's plan)
may not be amended so as to provide for a significant reduction in the rate of future benefit accrual, unless, after adoption of the plan amendment and not less than 15 days before the effective date of the plan amendment, the plan administrator provides a written notice, setting forth the plan amendment and its effective date, to--
(A) each participant in the plan, [and]
. . . . .
(C) each employee organization representing participants in the plan.
In an apparent attempt to comply with § 204(h), the plan administrator mailed a letter to Production and Maintenance Employees Local 504, the employees' union, informing the union that benefit accruals had ceased as of March 31. The union received this letter on June 6. Roadmaster, however, did not provide "a written notice ... to each participant in the plan...." Instead, on June 6, Roadmaster posted notices of the plan amendment on several bulletin boards in its plant. Those notices remained posted throughout June. At the time Roadmaster posted the notices, a large number of employees were on vacation. A dispute exists concerning exactly how many employees could have seen the posted notices, but Roadmaster has admitted that not all of its employees were on hand to see them.
After Roadmaster refused repeated requests by the union to correct what the union considered to be the illegal amendment to the plan, in January 1987 the union and several plan participants sued Roadmaster, the plan, and the plan's administrators. (We will refer to the defendants collectively as Roadmaster). The complaint's first count alleged that Roadmaster had illegally amended the plan because it failed to comply with the notice provision in § 204(h). The second count alleged that because the amendment ceased benefit accruals as of March 31, about three months before the amendment's adoption, the amendment violated § 204(g) of ERISA, 29 U.S.C. § 1054(g), which prohibits retroactive reductions of accrued benefits unless (among other things) the amendment is first submitted to the Secretary of Labor for approval. The plaintiffs also raised two other counts alleging breaches of fiduciary duty.
After about a year and a half of discovery in district court, the plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment on their claims that the plan amendment violated §§ 204(g) and (h). Once the plaintiffs filed their summary judgment motion, Roadmaster "clarified" the original amendment to provide benefit accruals for all employees from March 31 through June 30, 1986. Based on this "clarification," Roadmaster argued that its notices to the union and the employees were timely because those notices were sent and posted more than 15 days before June 30. To try to get around any problem with the form of the notice, Roadmaster argued that notice to the union, coupled with posted notices to the employees "substantially complied" with § 204(h)'s notice requirement. Roadmaster also argued that since it accrued benefits until June 30, the June 27 amendment did not retroactively decrease benefits and therefore did not violate § 204(g). Besides making these arguments to defend against the union's summary judgment motion, Roadmaster also filed its own motion for summary judgment on the §§ 204(g) and (h) claims.
The district court rejected Roadmaster's arguments and found that Roadmaster violated §§ 204(g) and (h). The court issued a written opinion, which concluded:
The Court ... ORDERS that (1) the Third Amendment to the Retirement Benefit Plan for Hourly-Paid Employees of Roadmaster Corporation, which ceases future benefit accruals, is hereby rescinded; (2) defendants are to give the participants their lost benefit accruals as provided in the Plan documents prior to the illegal adoption of the amendment in this case; and (3) defendants must contribute to the Plan such amounts, plus prejudgment interest, as would have been contributed to the Plan but for the amendment.
The court then found, presumably under Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b) (), "that there is no just reason for delay" and ordered the clerk to enter judgment for the plaintiffs on their §§ 204(g) and (h) claims. The court set forth its judgment on a document entitled "Judgment in a Civil Case," and the clerk entered judgment on the docket. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 58. However, both the judgment document and the docket entry state only that judgment is entered for plaintiffs; neither specifies the relief the court awarded. The court subsequently granted the plaintiffs' motion to dismiss voluntarily the third and fourth counts of their complaint. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(a). The court's order did not state whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice. The next day, Roadmaster appealed the district court's judgment.
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs had filed a motion for attorneys' fees and costs pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 1132(g)(1). The court denied the plaintiffs' motion, vacated that decision, and then denied the plaintiffs' renewed motion for attorneys' fees. The plaintiffs have appealed the court's decision on fees and costs, and we consolidated their appeal with the defendants' appeal of the decision on the merits.
The first question we face is whether we have jurisdiction over these appeals. Our jurisdiction depends on 28 U.S.C. § 1291, which grants us jurisdiction over appeals from the district courts' final decisions. Our review of the record led us to question whether the district court has entered a final appealable judgment in the plaintiffs' suit against Roadmaster. If not, we do not have jurisdiction over Roadmaster's appeal. Moreover, if the underlying decision on the merits of the plaintiffs' claims is not final and appealable, neither is the decision regarding attorneys' fees. "Decisions about fees are separate 'final decisions' only after there is a judgment on the merits that would be final but for the matter of fees." Sandwiches, Inc. v. Wendy's Int'l, Inc., 822 F.2d 707, 711 (7th Cir.1987). Because of our concerns, we asked the parties to file supplemental briefs regarding appellate jurisdiction.
The district court ordered Roadmaster to pay money into the plan but did not quantify the amount. The court also ordered Roadmaster to pay prejudgment interest on that money but did not fix the amount of interest or a rate from which it could be computed. A decision awarding but not quantifying damages normally is not final because it leaves a question that is not collateral to the merits to be resolved in the district court. Kaszuk v. Bakery & Confectionery Union, 791 F.2d 548, 553 (7th Cir.1986) (citations omitted); see also Parks v. Pavkovic, 753 F.2d 1397, 1401 (7th Cir.1985). Similarly, a judgment that awards prejudgment interest but does not fix the amount or a rate from which the amount can be computed normally is not final because it too leaves an essential part of the claim unresolved. See Parks, 753 F.2d at 1401...
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