Fenton v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 10 March 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 03-1277.,No. 02-1960.,No. 03-1278.,02-1960.,03-1277.,03-1278. |
| Citation | 400 F.3d 83 |
| Parties | Karen FENTON; Jeanne Randolph; Kathleen Wagner, Plaintiffs, Eileen Cheever; Anthony Costanzo; Mary Ann Diebold; Rosemary Gibson; Edith Neil; Marilyn Nuss; Susan Oikelmus, Plaintiffs-Appellees/Cross Appellants, v. JOHN HANCOCK MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, as the Administrator of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company Pension Plan, Defendant-Appellant/Cross Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Robert S. Frank, Jr., with whom Michelle L. Dineen Jerrett, Choate, Hall & Stewart, and Stephen H. Goldberg, Kristin A. Shepard, Jorden Burt LLP, were on brief, for defendant-appellant/cross appellee.
Jeffrey B. Renton, with whom Robert J. Gilbert, Gilbert & Renton LLC, was on brief, for plaintiffs-appellees/cross-appellants.
Before TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge, JOHN R. GIBSON,* Senior Circuit Judge, and LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.
The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the seven former employees in this action against their former employer, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company. The complaint seeks enhanced early retirement benefits under the company's pension plan. The question at issue is whether a 1994 amendment to the plan, making early retirement with full benefits available at age 56 to those with 25 years of service, applies to former employees whose jobs ended before they retired, or only to those who are still employed when they retire. John Hancock appeals, and the former employees cross-appeal the district court's calculation of attorney's fees. We reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
John Hancock terminated the employment of the seven plaintiffs in March 1997 as a result of John Hancock's sale of part of its business to UNICARE of California, Inc. Despite their termination, the former employees remained vested participants in John Hancock's ERISA-qualified pension plan.
The company established the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company Pension Plan in 1938. The Plan has been amended a number of times since it was established, and these amendments have periodically been incorporated in restatements of the Plan. The 1995 Restatement is at issue in this case; it was preceded by a 1976 Restatement. The Internal Revenue Service issued a favorable determination letter for the 1995 Restatement, meaning that the form of the Plan document complies with the Internal Revenue Code requirements for qualified plans.
The parties agree that the Plan was amended on October 11, 1994. Hancock asserts that this amendment was among those included in the Plan's 1995 Restatement, but the former employees refer to the 1995 Restatement as the "Partial Plan" and assert that it is non-integrated and therefore the 1994 amendment must be considered in addition to the 1995 Restatement. The 1994 amendment lowered from 55 to 50 the age at which a qualifying Plan participant could elect early retirement at reduced benefits. Employees who were at least 56 years old with 25 years of service became eligible for full retirement benefits. Before the amendment, employees were subject to a rule of 85, which allowed full retirement benefits to those with combined age and years of service equaling at least 85. Under the 1994 amendment, eligible participants who choose to retire between the ages of 50 and 56 have their benefits calculated using a formula that subtracts 0.4% of a participant's full retirement benefit for each month that precedes the participant's fifty-sixth birthday.
The Plan also had a special provision for participants whose service with Hancock had been terminated other than by retirement. Such participants had to choose between a full pension at age 65, or a reduced pension beginning whenever they became eligible for early retirement (e.g., with 15 years of service, at age 50). That reduced pension would be calculated according to the 0.4%-per-month formula with a baseline of age 65.
The former employees, with one exception, fall into a narrow category of Plan participants who had accrued more than 25 years of service with John Hancock but had not reached 50 years of age at the time of their termination.1 They claimed full retirement benefits starting at age 56,2 believing that the liberalization of the retirement age in the 1994 amendment applied to them. John Hancock, acting in its capacity as Plan Administrator, denied these former employees full retirement benefits at age 56. Because these individuals' employment with John Hancock had been terminated before retiring, Hancock concluded that they were not eligible for those benefits. John Hancock interpreted the Plan to preclude this category of participants from obtaining full pension benefits at age 56. Instead, John Hancock deemed former employees who left the company prior to age 50 ineligible for full pension benefits until age 65 even if they had accrued 25 years of service. Under this reading of the Plan, the former employees were "early retirees" whose pensions were reduced by 0.4% for each month between the age at which they applied for retirement and age 65. Although the former employees could elect to begin receiving reduced benefits as of age 50, those benefits would be calculated using the normal retirement age of 65.
The former employees filed a three-count complaint to obtain the pension benefits described in the 1994 Plan amendment. The first count is a traditional benefits claim in which the former employees seek a declaration of their rights under the Plan pursuant to ERISA section 502(a)(1)(B), 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B). In the second count, the former employees allege John Hancock breached its fiduciary duty under ERISA section 502(a)(3), 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(3). The third count, which asserts relief under the federal common law theory of estoppel, is asserted only on behalf of former employee Diebold. The former employees moved for summary judgment on Count I of their amended complaint while John Hancock sought summary judgment on all three counts. The district court granted the former employees' motion, denied John Hancock's motion on Count I, declared moot John Hancock's motion on Counts II and III, and awarded attorney's fees and costs to the former employees in the amount of $301,324.24. John Hancock appeals the summary judgment order and the award of fees and costs, and the former employees cross-appeal the award of attorney's fees with respect to the rate at which they were calculated.
We begin by determining the proper standard of review. The district court's grant of summary judgment is, of course, reviewed de novo, with all inferences resolved in favor of John Hancock. See Rodriguez-Abreu v. Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., 986 F.2d 580, 583 (1st Cir.1993). Summary judgment is appropriate only if there is no genuine dispute as to material facts and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id.
The ERISA statute directs the district court to confine its analysis to the terms of the plan. ERISA authorizes a participant to bring an action "to recover benefits due to him under the terms of his plan, to enforce his rights under the terms of the plan, or to clarify his rights to future benefits under the terms of the plan." 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B) (emphasis added). The identity of the plan is thus a material fact, and we must determine whether a genuine issue exists as to that identity.
Underlying the dispute is a disagreement about which documents constitute the Plan. John Hancock urges that the Plan consists only of the undated version of "The John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company Pension Plan" which the former employees attached to their amended complaint as an exhibit. We will refer to this as "the 1995 Restatement," as John Hancock admits it was a true and correct copy of the Pension Plan as of January 1 of that year. John Hancock contends it is the operative Plan document, and that it alone governs the former employees' rights as asserted in Count I.
The former employees, by contrast, refer to this document as "the Partial Plan" and describe it as a mere non-integrated description of the technical terms of the Plan which must be supplemented in order to present a complete statement of the Plan's terms. The former employees do not present a competing version of an integrated Plan document. Rather, they assert that a number of items must be considered along with the 1995 Restatement. They refer to the 1994 amendment as the "cornerstone" of their claim, and state that they also "follow the path carved by the District Court" by relying on the 1991 summary plan description and its 1996 update to provide additional terms. The summary plan description is a booklet entitled, "Your Benefits Program: Reflecting Changing Needs,"3 and the 1996 update is labeled as such. The former employees find additional support for their interpretation of the Plan from documents created around the time of the 1994 Amendment, including a transcript of comments made by Stephen Brown, John Hancock's Chairman and CEO, at a company meeting on October 20, 1994, and a letter of the same date from Brown to employees.
In its recitation of undisputed facts, the district court quoted portions of the 1995 Restatement, the 1994 amendment, the 1996 update to the Plan's summary plan description, and various letters, brochures, and other documents distributed by John Hancock to its employees. Likewise, the district court considered these documents in granting summary judgment on Count I, the benefits claim, but it provided no explanation as to their relevance or admissibility.
John Hancock argues that the summary plan description must not be considered in this case unless the former employees prove...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
American Steel Erectors v. Local Union No. 7
...grant of summary judgment de novo, with all reasonable inferences resolved in favor of the nonmoving party. Fenton v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co., 400 F.3d 83, 87 (1st Cir.2005). Nonetheless, we must ignore "conclusory allegations, improbable inferences, and unsupported speculation." Me......
-
Otero Carrasquillo v. Pharmacia
...and capricious" standard. See Wright v. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. Group, 402 F.3d 67, 74 (1st Cir.2005); Fenton v. John Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co., 400 F.3d 83, 90-91 (1st Cir.2005); Matias-Correa v. Pfizer, Inc., 345 F.3d, 7, 11 (1st The arbitrary and capricious standard is "functionally......
-
Daniels v. Agin
...Because the courts could have found the same information in IRS regulations and our previous opinion, see Fenton v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co., 400 F.3d 83, 85 (1st Cir.2005), the error, if any, was harmless. 13. Daniels argues that IRS determinations are presumed to be correct, citing......
-
Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island v. State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, No. 04-1155 (Fed. 1st Cir. 5/12/2005)
...grant of summary judgment de novo, construing the evidence in the light most favorable to the appellant. Fenton v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins., 400 F.3d 83, 87 (1st Cir. 2005). We will uphold the grant of summary judgment if there is no genuine issue of material fact and appellees are entit......