Malhiot v. Southern California Retail Clerks Union

• Decision Date: 19 June 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83-6010,83-6010
• Citation: 735 F.2d 1133
• Parties: George J. MALHIOT, and Marjorie M. Malhiot, Appellants, v. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA RETAIL CLERKS UNION and Drug Employer Pension and Trust Fund, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1133

735 F.2d 1133

George J. MALHIOT, and Marjorie M. Malhiot, Appellants, v. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA RETAIL CLERKS UNION and Drug Employer Pension and Trust Fund, Appellees.

No. 83-6010.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted March 8, 1984.

Decided June 19, 1984.

Alan R. Jampol, Beverly Hills, Cal., Nolan F. King, Law Offices of Nolan F. King, Pasadena, Cal., for appellants.

Stuart Libicki, Schwartz, Steinsapir, Dohrman, Krepack, Sommers, Edelstein, Los Angeles, Cal., for appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

Before SNEED and BOOCHEVER, Circuit Judges, and SOLOMON, ^* District Judge.

SOLOMON, Senior District Judge:

Appellant Marjorie Malhiot is a beneficiary of the Southern California Drug Benefit Fund (Fund), created under a collective bargaining agreement. The Fund (appellee) denied medical benefits to Marjorie and her husband, George Malhiot. The district court affirmed the denial, and the Malhiots appealed. We affirm. We also assess costs and attorney's fees against the Malhiots' attorneys.

Facts

Marjorie Malhiot is employed by Thrifty Corporation. Thrifty employees are beneficiaries of the Fund, which receives employer contributions and provides medical benefits to employees, their spouses, and dependents. The Fund is administered under rules and regulations established by its trustees.

The Fund's eligibility rules provide that a spouse is eligible for benefits "as of the date of the marriage." The trustees have always defined "spouse" as an individual legally married to a member.

In February, 1981, George Malhiot sought reimbursement from the Fund for medical expenses he incurred in a March, 1980 automobile accident. The Fund's trustees refused to reimburse him for expenses incurred before December, 1980, the date of his marriage to Marjorie. George and Marjorie Malhiot were married in December, 1980, but they contend that they had already been married under California law in 1968.

They assert that they exchanged wedding vows before a minister and witnesses on February 14, 1968, but concede that they had no marriage license and did not receive a marriage certificate.

For several years thereafter, Marjorie listed her last name as Davis (her previous married name) and her marital status as single on her employment records. She submitted a choice card ¹ to the Fund giving her last name as Davis. In the space on the card labeled "husband or wife," she wrote "none."

Ten years after her alleged 1968 wedding ceremony, Marjorie submitted a choice card to the Fund naming George Malhiot as her spouse. An employee of the Fund requested a marriage certificate which Marjorie did not submit. After a telephone conversation between Marjorie and the Fund employee, the following notation was written on the choice card: "Per phone conversation with member, George is not legal spouse." The employee removed George's name from the card, and Marjorie submitted a new choice card which did not name George.

In March, 1980, George was injured in an automobile accident. On December 28, 1980, Marjorie and George were married. In February, 1981, George submitted his medical bills to the Fund. In March, 1981, Marjorie sent to the Fund a copy of their marriage certificate and a revised choice card naming George as her spouse. In a space labeled "date of marriage," she wrote "12/28/80."

The Fund denied George Malhiot reimbursement for medical expenses incurred before December 28, 1980 on the ground that he was not Marjorie's legal spouse before that date.

The Malhiots filed an action in the California Superior Court alleging violations of state insurance laws and the Employees Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. Sec. 1001 et seq. The Fund removed the action to federal district court. The court granted a stay to permit the Malhiots to administratively appeal the denial to the Fund's Board of Trustees.

The Fund's Appeals Committee recommended that the Board of Trustees deny the appeal on the ground that the Malhiots "were not legally married until December 28, 1980 and ... were unmarried at the time of the automobile accident.... [O]nly legal spouses are entitled to coverage." The Board of Trustees denied the Malhiots' appeal.

The district court dismissed the state insurance claims and entered judgment for the Fund on the ERISA claim.

The Malhiots filed a motion for new trial or, in the alternative, a motion to amend the pretrial order. The court denied both motions.

Discussion

I.

The Fund's Declaration of Trust grants the trustees discretion to fashion and apply eligibility requirements. Eligibility decisions by the trustees of an employee benefit plan will not be reversed by the courts unless they are arbitrary, capricious, made in bad faith, not supported by substantial evidence, or erroneous on a question of law. Rehmar v. Smith, 555 F.2d 1362, 1371 (9th Cir.1976); Music v. Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Trust Fund, 712 F.2d 413, 418 (9th Cir.1983).

A definition of the word "spouse," which requires a marriage valid under state law, is not arbitrary or capricious. Rehmar, 555 F.2d at 1372.

The district court was required to determine, on the basis of the record before the trustees, whether the Fund's decision was based on substantial evidence. Hicks v. Pacific Maritime Association, 567 F.2d 355, 358 (9th Cir.1978). The trustees' decision was based on a letter from the Malhiots' attorney and two of Marjorie's choice cards. The attorney's letter alleged that George and Marjorie Malhiot had lived as husband and wife since 1968 and had exchanged marriage vows that year although "a formal certificate of marriage was never issued." The choice cards included the one with the notation that George's name had been removed after the telephone conversation with Marjorie and the card submitted soon after that conversation that did not name George. This evidence supports the trustees' decision to deny benefits on the ground that the Malhiots were not legally married before December 28, 1980.

Common law marriages are not recognized in California. Menchaca v. Hiatt, 59 Cal.App.3d 117, 130 Cal.Rptr. 607, 613-14 (1976). But the Malhiots argue that under California law, they were legally married in February, 1968 as a result of having lived together and gone through a marriage ceremony. They rely on Section 4213 of the California Civil Code, formerly Civil Code Section 79, which they assert provides that, "Where unmarried persons, not minors, have been living together as man and wife, they may be married by any clergyman, without a license or a health certificate." This quotation is the first sentence of a version of Section 79 that was in effect from 1878 until 1954. The second sentence of the statute, not cited by the Malhiots, is as follows: "A certificate of such marriage must, by the clergyman, be made and delivered to the parties, and recorded upon the records of the church of which the clergyman is a representative. No other record need be made."

The version of Section 79 that was in effect from 1954 until 1969 provided:

When unmarried persons, not minors, have been living together as man and wife, they may, without a license, be married by any clergyman. A certificate of such marriage shall, by the clergyman, be made and delivered to the parties, and recorded upon the records of the church of which the clergyman is a representative. No other record need be made.

The present version, now Section 4213, reads:

When an umarried man and an unmarried woman, not minors, have been living together as husband and wife they may without a license, be married by any person authorized to solemnize a marriage under Sections 4205, 4205.1, and 4205.5, without the necessity of first obtaining health certificates.

* * *

* * *

Upon performance of the ceremony, the person performing the ceremony shall give a copy of the confidential marriage certificate to the parties who were married. The person performing the ceremony shall also provide the parties who were married with an application for a certified copy of the confidential marriage certificate which shall be filled out by the parties and sent by the person performing the marriage to the county clerk.

* * *

* * *

Every version of the statute since 1878 has required certification by the person performing the ceremony in order for the marriage to be valid. The Malhiots have never produced a marriage certificate from the 1968 ceremony and were therefore not legally married under Section 79. The trustees correctly decided that the Malhiots were not married until December 28, 1980, and the district court properly upheld their decision.

II.

The Malhiots apparently believe that if they can prove that they lived together before the 1968 ceremony, they will have proved that they were legally married under Section 79.

The Malhiots stipulated to a pretrial order which stated, "Plaintiffs Marjorie M. and George J. Malhiot have lived together since September 1, 1968." The Malhiots now assert that "1968" was a typographical error that they did not discover until after the trial. They allege that the date in the order should have been September 1, 1967. The Malhiots contend that the district court's refusal to allow amendment of the pretrial order or to grant a new trial was an abuse of discretion.

The Malhiots' argument is without merit. The record discloses no evidence that the number "1968" was an error. The 1968 date conforms to the Malhiots' complaint, to their deposition testimony, ² and to the letter which they submitted to the Fund.

A pretrial order will be modified only to prevent manifest injustice. Fed.R.Civ.P. 16(e). Even if there had been an error, amendment of the pretrial order would not have changed the evidence that was before the trustees and therefore would not have affected the outcome of the action. The district court's denial of the Malhiots' ...