Amato v. Bernard
| Citation | 618 F.2d 559 |
| Decision Date | 08 May 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 78-1931,78-1931 |
| Parties | 104 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2719, 54 A.L.R.Fed. 349, 2 Employee Benefits Ca 2536 Michael R. AMATO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. J. W. BERNARD; Warren Driver; C. V. Holder; Roy Silver; John Kuhl; Paul Miller, Rex Bowlby, Sam Heil, Gerald Stedman, J. W. Wood, Individually and as Trustees, Carpenters Pension Trust for Southern California; Vivian Ciervo; Roger Lopez, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) |
Edward J. Howell, Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiff-appellant.
James P. Watson, Cox, Castle & Nicholson, Los Angeles, Cal., for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Before WALLACE and TANG, Circuit Judges, and HANSON, * Senior District Judge.
The appellant, Michael R. Amato, brought this suit against the trustees and two employees of the Carpenters Pension Trust for Southern California (the Trust) on July 13, 1977. The amended complaint states two causes of action. The first, which seeks a declaration of the parties' rights and duties under the Trust's Pension Plan, alleges that Amato is entitled to a full pension from the Trust, and that although he has applied for this pension "on numerous occasions prior to filing the complaint . . . on each occasion he has been denied." Federal jurisdiction of this first claim is predicated on 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a), the civil enforcement provision of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA or the Act), 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq. The second cause of action seeks money damages for defendants' alleged bad faith in their dealings with Amato; federal jurisdiction here is claimed under the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction.
The defendants moved for summary judgment as to the first cause of action and to dismiss the second. These motions were both granted by the district court and judgment was entered accordingly. As to the first cause of action, the court held that Amato has made only one proper application for pension benefits, which was finally denied in November 1972; that jurisdiction under ERISA is not available to review actions by the trust finalized prior to September 2, 1974, the effective date of the Act; and that
(i)f plaintiff claims (as he does) that new facts and circumstances not heretofore presented to the Board of Trustees in 1971-1972 now entitle him to further consideration of his request for a pension, he is obligated to exhaust the administrative procedures set for(th) in the Pension Plan before seeking judicial relief. He has not done so, and this action is therefore premature.
Amato v. Bernard, No. CV 77-2583-RJK (C.D.Cal., filed February 1, 1978). The district court dismissed the second cause of action on the ground that absent the first, no basis existed for the assertion of pendent jurisdiction over the second claim.
The issues raised in this appeal all have to do with whether Amato has ever obtained a final decision from the Trust that is reviewable under ERISA, or whether he should be required to do so before seeking relief under that Act. We affirm the district court.
The Trust was formed pursuant to the provisions of section 302(c) of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. § 186(c), under a collective bargaining agreement between the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (the Union) and several employers' associations for their contractor-members. The Trust's Pension Plan was amended in 1976 to bring it into compliance with ERISA. Some aspects of the Trust and its operations were discussed in this Court's opinion in N. L. R. B. v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners of America, Local # 1913, AFL-CIO, 531 F.2d 424 (9th Cir. 1976); others will be mentioned infra. We note here that at all relevant times the Plan has spelled out in some detail procedures to be followed by claimants both in applying for benefits and in appealing to the Trustees any initial denial of such applications. The relevant provisions of the 1976 version of the Plan are set out in the margin. 1
Amato worked in Connecticut and New Jersey from 1947 to 1955. He was a member of the Union throughout that period. In 1955 he moved to California, joined Local 1913 of the Union and worked until 1969. He first applied for pension benefits in April 1971. According to the calculations made by the Trust in 1971 in connection with the disposition of that application, Amato had accumulated only seven and one-half years of service credits under the terms of the Trust's Pension Plan by the time he stopped working in 1969. 2 The Trust has at all relevant times required a minimum of ten years of credited service in order to qualify for any kind of a pension other than a disability pension. Amato has never applied for a disability pension.
The complicating factor in this case is that Amato did not voluntarily stop working in 1969. Rather, in April of that year he got into a dispute with his Local, which resulted in his being fined and suspended by the Local in June 1969 and in his bringing unfair labor practices charges against the Local and others later in the same year. The protracted unfair labor practices litigation proceeded in two stages: (1) Amato won a favorable trial examiner's ruling against the Local on August 21, 1970, which was adopted by the NLRB, 189 NLRB 521 (1971), and enforced by this Court, 464 F.2d 1395 (9th Cir. 1972). The Trust was not a party to this phase of the litigation. (2) In a supplemental proceeding initiated in 1973 to determine the amount of back pay owed by the Local to Amato, an administrative law judge (ALJ) recommended on April 26, 1974 that the Local be required to pay $12,088.34 (plus interest) to Amato and $1,147.30 (plus interest) to the Trust to be credited to Amato's pension account. This recommendation was in essence affirmed by the NLRB, 213 NLRB 363 (1974), and enforced by this Court, 531 F.2d 424 (1976). The Trust and its trustees intervened in this second phase of the litigation and were subject to the enforced order of the NLRB to accept payment of the amount awarded to Amato for credit to his pension account, and to administer that account as though the payments had been made by an employer-contributor. The amounts paid to Amato and the Trust as a result of these decisions were based on the ALJ's finding that the Local's unfair labor practices had caused Amato to lose 553 hours of work in 1969 and 1405 hours in 1970. When the Trust recalculated Amato's service credits in 1976 on the basis of these "late reported hours," it concluded that Amato had accumulated nine years of credited service through 1970.
As noted, Amato first applied for pension benefits in April 1971, while the unfair labor practices litigation was in its first stage. This application was initially denied on June 7, 1971, on the ground that Amato did not have enough service credits to qualify for a pension. The letter notifying Amato of the denial of his application called his attention to his right to appeal the decision administratively, and to the fact that even if he failed to do so he would not be precluded "from filing a new application at a later date based on additional information and evidence not currently available to you, provided that the same does not involve a period earlier than three years from the date of the application."
Over the next year and a half there was an extensive correspondence between Amato and the Trust, and at least one meeting between Amato and his lawyer and representatives of the Trust. Two features of this extended interaction stand out. First, as to the merits of his claim for a pension, Amato consistently argued that the Trust should give him additional credits for the time he had been out of work because of his Local's discrimination against him; and the Trust as consistently took the view that the unfair labor practices litigation, which was then in its first stage, had no bearing on the merits of the pension application. However, Amato never asked the Trust to delay its decision on his application until such time as it should be finally determined what the Local would have to do to make him whole. That question of course was not finally settled until the 1976 decision of this Court. Second, Amato was given every possible opportunity to argue his claim before the Trust. He challenged the initial denial of his application in a letter dated August 23, 1971. This letter was reviewed by the Board of Trustees on October 27, 1971, and the Board affirmed the initial denial. Amato continued to contest the decision, and indicated his desire to appear before the Trustees himself. He was scheduled to appear "with the representatives of your choice" before the Trust's Appeals Committee on February 29, 1972, the proceedings to be "reported by an official court reporter, and the recommendations of the Appeals Committee (to) be submitted to the full Board of Trustees for final action." However, this appearance was postponed by mutual agreement pending the outcome of informal discussions between Amato and his lawyer and representatives of the Trust. These discussions bore no fruit; and Amato was again scheduled to appear before the Appeals Committee, this time on August 15, 1972. He failed to appear, and the Committee postponed consideration of his case. Several more letters were exchanged, to no avail. Finally, at its meeting of November 27, 1972, the Committee passed on Amato's appeal, upholding the earlier decision to deny his pension application. The minutes of that meeting indicate that:
Co-Counsel (for the Trust) reviewed Mr. Amato's claim that he was discriminated against in getting work out of the Union hiring hall and should therefore receive Pension Credits for the time in question. He reported on receipt of correspondence indicating that Mr. Amato prevailed in unfair labor practices charges which he filed...
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