Mirabella v. Amalgamated Ins. Fund

• Decision Date: 25 June 1980
• Citation: 9 Mass.App.Ct. 634,403 N.E.2d 1181
• Parties: Grace MIRABELLA v. AMALGAMATED INSURANCE FUND et al. 1
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

Page 1181

403 N.E.2d 1181

9 Mass.App.Ct. 634

Grace MIRABELLA v. AMALGAMATED INSURANCE FUND et al. ¹

Appeals Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued Feb. 21, 1980.

Decided May 1, 1980.

Further Appellate Review Denied June 25, 1980.

Paul F. Kelly, Boston, for Amalgamated Ins. Fund.

Lawrence R. Cohen, Boston, for Robert Lawrence Co., Inc.

Rocco C. Senese, Boston, for plaintiff.

Before GREANEY, PERRETTA and KASS, JJ.

KASS, Justice.

Grace Mirabella, who had been a stitcher in the garment industry, applied for retirement benefits from the Amalgamated Insurance Fund (Fund) and was denied them for failure to meet eligibility criteria. From that denial, Mirabella sought relief. A judge sitting without a jury found that Mirabella had met the eligibility requirements of the Fund and judgment entered imposing joint and several liability on the Fund and the co-defendant, Robert Lawrence Company, Inc., to pay benefits to Mirabella at the rate of $63.75 per month, retroactive to September 1, 1972, and for the remainder of her life. From that judgment the defendants appealed.

The retirement plan of the Fund is non-contributory; i. e., contributions to it are made by employers in accordance with collective bargaining agreements between the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, AFL-CIO (later known as Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union) and manufacturers and contractors of men's and boys' clothing. The employees make no payment to the Fund. See International Bhd. of Teamsters v. Daniel, 439 U.S. 551, 553, 99 S.Ct. 790, 793, 53 L.Ed.2d 808 (1979). Equal numbers of employer and union representatives comprise the board of trustees of the Fund and these trustees administer the Fund for the benefit of members of the union.

Certain background facts are not in contention. Mirabella worked on and off for various clothing manufacturers in the Boston area from 1955 until 1972. Her claim for benefits against the Fund was under part 3 of the "retirement plan," which applies to employees who have worked between ten and twenty years in the garment industry. Of four criteria of eligibility, the one which is contested is that the employee shall have "been continuously employed in Covered Employment by an Employer or Employers for at least ten (10) years immediately prior to the Employee's application." The term "covered employment" is satisfied with respect to any calendar year in which the employee was actively employed for at least twenty-six weeks. It was the practice of the trustees to credit claimants against the Fund with a full week's employment during a week in which the claimant worked only a partial week. In order to satisfy the term "covered employment" the employer must be one who is obligated to contribute to the Fund for retirement purposes. An employee was credited by the trustees with covered employment even though a participating employer had not, in fact, made its required payments to the Fund.

It is the position of the Fund that Mirabella did not work at lest twenty-six weeks in 1968, 1971 and 1972 and that, so far as Robert Lawrence Company, Inc., is concerned, it was not a party to a collective bargaining agreement requiring it to contribute to the Fund during the years 1960 through 1970 inclusive, and the preponderance of the year 1971. Thus, to the extent Mirabella relied upon employment with Robert Lawrence Company, Inc., during 1968 and 1970 ² to satisfy the eligibility requirements of the Fund, even had she enjoyed at least twenty-six weeks of active employment during those years, it was not "covered employment" because Robert Lawrence Company was not a contributing employer. In the aggregate, therefore, the Fund contests Mirabella's eligibility during four of the relevant ten years: 1968, 1970, 1971 and 1972.

On these disputed issues the trial judge found that Mirabella worked continuously from 1955 to 1971, and that while she "may not have worked steadily, she nevertheless worked at least for twenty-six different days and different weeks in any given year." We are constrained to observe that upon our reading of the record these findings required an indulgent attitude toward the plaintiff's view of the evidence. Social security records admitted in evidence reflected that Mirabella worked for only one quarter of the year in 1972. Those records also lead to an almost irresistable inference that she worked less than twenty-six weeks in 1968 and 1971 as well. As for 1970, the social security records could be read to reflect more than twenty-six weeks of work, but the employment was all with Robert Lawrence Company, Inc., which was not a covered employer that year. Mirabella herself testified that there was "no way she can tell how much she worked in any given year." (Mirabella, who is not English speaking, testified through an interpreter who generally cast her statements in the third person). Her more studied response to a notice to admit facts disclosed similar uncertainty by Mirabella about how much she worked.

It is not necessary, however, for us to conclude that the judge's findings were clearly erroneous. See Mass.R.Civ.P. 52(a), 365 Mass. 816 (1974). Marlow v. New Bedford, 369 Mass. 501, 508, 340 N.E.2d 494 (1976). Under the governing document, the "Retirement Plan of the Amalgamated Insurance Fund," the trustees have the "sole and exclusive right to determine whether or not the applicant has met the eligibility requirements of the Retirement Plan and qualifies for retirement benefits. The decision of the trustees is final and binding on the applicant." Where the rights of the parties are controlled by a plan and the plan...