Robinson v. Metro. Life Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 27 March 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. 12-cv-01373-JAM-AC,12-cv-01373-JAM-AC |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of California |
| Parties | DANIELA ROBINSON, Plaintiff, v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant. METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Counterclaimant, v. DANIELA ROBINSON, Counterdefendant. |
Presently before the Court is Defendant/Counterclaimant Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's ("Defendant") Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. #16).1 Plaintiff/Counterdefendant Daniela Robinson ("Plaintiff") opposes the motion (Doc. #19).
This matter concerns the payment of disability benefits under a long term disability plan sponsored by Catholic Healthcare West (the "CHW Plan"). Defendant is the plan administrator. Plaintiff participated in the CHW Plan as a nurse employee at St. Joseph's Medical Center, a subsidiary or division of Catholic Healthcare West, now known as Dignity Health ("CHW"). Plaintiff stopped working on June 18, 2007. On April 18, 2008 she submitted a claim to Defendant for benefits under the CHW Plan. Defendant approved the claim and paid benefits for over two years.
The CHW Plan became effective January 1, 2002 and continued through the relevant time period. The CHW Plan contains the following definition of disability:
Broadwater Decl. (Doc. 16-1) Ex. A, Administrative Record (hereinafter cited as "Admin."), at 23. The 180 day elimination period is the 180 days after the onset of disability. Admin. 21. Unless a claimant is continuously disabled for 180 days, he or she will not receive payments under the CHW Plan.
Plaintiff's claim was initially approved in April 2008 with an initial payment date of December 16, 2007. Admin. 769. This is because under the CHW Plan, the elimination period ran from her last day of work in June 2007 through December 2007.
On October 15, 2007, CHW elected pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 410(d) ("§ 410(d)") to treat the CHW Plan as governed by and subject to the provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA"). The election was attached to CHW's Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") Form 5500 for the 2006 plan year.
Plaintiff's complaint (Doc. #1) contains two state law claims against Defendant for 1) Breach of the Duty of Good Faith and Fair Dealing, and 2) Breach of Contract. Defendant answered the complaint and included counterclaims for 1) Equitable Relief Under ERISA, 2) Declaratory Relief, 3) and Unjust Enrichment. Defendant's motion for summary judgment only references Plaintiff's claims, not Defendant's counterclaims. Accordingly, the only issue presently before the Court is whether or not Defendant is entitled to judgment on Plaintiff's affirmative claims. This Court has jurisdiction pursuant to either 28 U.S.C. § 1331 if Defendant is correct that ERISA preempts Plaintiff's state law claims or 28 U.S.C. § 1332 based on the diversity of citizenship of the parties.
OPINIONSummary judgment is proper "if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, togetherwith affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). The purpose of summary judgment "is to isolate and dispose of factually unsupported claims or defenses." Celotex v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323-324 (1986).
The moving party bears the initial burden of demonstrating the absence of a genuine issue of material fact for trial. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248-49 (1986). If the moving party meets its burden, the burden of production then shifts so that "the non-moving party must set forth, by affidavit or as otherwise provided in Rule 56, 'specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.'" T.W. Electrical Services, Inc. v. Pacific Electric Contractors Ass'n, 809 F.2d 626, 630 (9th Cir. 1987) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e)). The Court must view the facts and draw inferences in the manner most favorable to the non-moving party. United States v. Diebold, Inc., 369 U.S. 654, 655 (1962). "[M]ere disagreement or bald assertion that a genuine issue of material fact exists will not preclude the grant of summary judgment". Harper v. Wallingford, 877 F. 2d 728, 731 (9th Cir. 1987).
The mere existence of a scintilla of evidence in support of the non-moving party's position is insufficient: "There must be evidence on which the jury could reasonably find for [the non-moving party]." Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252. This Court thus applies to either a defendant's or plaintiff's motion for summary judgment the same standard as for a motion for directed verdict, which is "whether the evidence presents a sufficientdisagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law." Id. Discussion
1. Applicability of the CHW Plan's 26 U.S.C. § 410(d) Waiver
For purposes of the present motion only, the parties agree that the CHW Plan is a "church plan" as defined by 29 U.S.C. § 1002(33)(A), and that church plans are generally exempt from ERISA pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 1003(b)(2). The parties also agree that under certain circumstances, an election made pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 410(d) permits a church plan to opt in to the ERISA regulatory scheme. It is undisputed that such an election would operate along with ERISA's broad preemption provision to bar state law claims such as Plaintiff's if they relate to the CHW Plan. See Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U.S. 133, 139 (1990).
Defendant argues in support of this motion that the CHW Plan operates under a valid election, that the election applies to Plaintiff's benefits, and therefore ERISA is the only authority that applies to this dispute. Plaintiff, on the other hand, argues that a church plan can only make an election pursuant to § 410(d) if it is a pension plan, not a welfare benefit plan like the CHW Plan at issue in this case. Plaintiff does concede that if the § 410(d) election is valid and applicable to her claim, then ERISA preempts her state law claims. In order to determine what law applies to this motion, the Court must first determine if a welfare benefit plan can make an election pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 410(d), and if so,whether or not the CHW Plan made a valid election such that ERISA applies to the parties' claims.
Defendant contends that any church plan, whether it is welfare, pension, or both, may elect to be governed by ERISA by following the procedure in 26 U.S.C. § 410(d). Defendant relies on one case from the District of Maine, Catholic Charities of Me., Inc. v. City of Portland, 304 F. Supp. 2d 77 (D. Me. 2004), and a plain reading of the applicable statutes to support its position. Plaintiff responds that the Catholic Charities case was wrongly decided, that the case is only persuasive authority, and § 410(d) should be correctly read as only applying to pension plans. Plaintiff therefore contends that 29 U.S.C. § 1003(b)(3) only authorizes a § 410(d) election for pension plans, even if the statute does not explicitly limit the election.
Neither the Ninth Circuit nor the Supreme Court has decided whether or not a church welfare benefit plan can make a § 410(d) election. Accordingly, this is a matter of first impression within this Circuit. As the Plaintiff correctly points out, the only authority squarely on point consists of the Catholic Charities decision, which is not binding on this Court, and the statutory text. See Boyd v. Benton Cnty., 374 F.3d 773, 781 (9th Cir. 2004) ().
In construing the provisions of a statute, a court must first look to the statute itself to see whether its language hasa plain meaning. Satterfield v. Simon & Schuster, Inc., 569 F.3d 946, 951 (9th Cir. 2009) (citing McDonald v. Sun Oil Co., 548 F.3d 774, 780 (9th Cir. 2008)). If the statutory language is unambiguous, the inquiry ends and the court applies the statute as it is written. Id.
29 U.S.C. § 1003(b)(2) is located within the "General Provisions" subtitle of ERISA. It states, "The provisions of this subchapter shall not apply to any employee benefit plan if . . . such plan is a church plan (as defined in section 1002(33) of this title) with respect to which no election has been made under section 410(d) of Title 26 . . . ." 29 U.S.C. § 1003(b)(2). That section is certainly plain - church plans are not governed by ERISA unless they make a § 410(d) election. 26 U.S.C. § 410(d) is located within a part of the Internal Revenue Code ("IRC") titled, "Pension, Profit-Sharing, Stock Bonus Plans, Etc." That section provides, "If the church . . . makes an election under this subsection [pursuant to regulation], then the provisions of this title relating to participation, vesting, funding, etc. . . . shall apply to such church plan as if such provisions did not contain an exclusion for church plans." There are two possible points of ambiguity in § 410(d). First, it is located within a section of the IRC that seems to apply only to deferred compensation plans. Second, it contains an enumeration concluded by a necessarily ambiguous "etc." It is these potential ambiguities that Plaintiff relies on to argue that Congress only wished to allow pension plans to make a § 410(d) election.
This Court is not persuaded by Plaintiff's argument. First, the IRC defines exactly what a church plan is for its...
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