Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-18-06314/USCOURTS-ca6-18-06314-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Kenneth H. Miller
Appellee
Retirement Program Plan for Employees of Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC
Appellant

Document Text:

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

File Name: 19a0445n.06

No. 18-6314

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

KENNETH H. MILLER,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

RETIREMENT PROGRAM PLAN FOR 

EMPLOYEES OF CONSOLIDATED 

NUCLEAR SECURITY, LLC, at the U.S. 

Department of Energy Facilities 

at Oak Ridge, Tennessee,

Defendant-Appellant.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT 

COURT FOR THE EASTERN 

DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE

Before: McKEAGUE, KETHLEDGE, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judge. Complexity is not the same thing as contradiction. Here, a 

retirement plan specified two different meanings for the term “Credited Service”: one meaning

applied for the purpose of calculating the amount of an employee’s pension; the other applied to 

determine whether the employee had a “vested” right to benefits. To avoid a putative 

contradiction, the district court applied the latter meaning for the former purpose. We respectfully 

disagree with that decision, and reverse.

The Retirement Program Plan for Employees of Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC (the 

Retirement Program) manages a retirement plan for employees at the Y-12 National Security 

Complex in Oakridge, Tennessee. The plan provides a pension which increases by some amount 

for “each year” of an employee’s “Credited Service” at the complex. But the plan states that 

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Miller v. Retirement Program Plan for Employees of Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC

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employees have no vested right to the pension (and other benefits) unless an employee accumulates 

“at least five years of Credited Service” at the complex. Anything less, and the employee “shall 

receive no Retirement Benefits.” 

To participate in the plan, an employee must work directly for one of the companies that 

have adopted the plan (or for an affiliate of such a company). Employees who work for 

subcontractors—whom the plan calls “leased employees”—are ineligible for the plan and 

generally do not accrue pension benefits for their work at the complex.

On November 21, 1992, Kenneth Miller began working as an electrical inspector at the 

complex. He worked for a subcontractor, so the Retirement Program deemed Miller a “leased 

employee” and therefore ineligible to participate in the plan. After 12 years as an employee of the 

subcontractor, however, Miller began working for a company that had adopted the plan—namely, 

Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Y-12, LLC. He thus became eligible to participate in the 

plan on the first day of his new job: December 6, 2004. 

Twelve years later, Miller noticed that the Retirement Program was calculating the amount 

of his pension as though his Credited Service began in 2004 (when he had started working for 

Babcock) rather than 1992 (when he had started working for the subcontractor). Miller asked the 

Retirement Program to calculate his pension with a Credited Service beginning in 1992. The 

Retirement Program’s lawyer replied that, as relevant to the plan provisions that define the amount 

of his pension, Miller’s Credited Service began in 2004. Miller objected, and eventually the Plan 

Administrator formally denied Miller’s request.

Miller thereafter sued the Retirement Program under ERISA, 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a), claiming

that the Retirement Program should have calculated the amount of his pension with a Credited 

Service beginning in 1992. Based upon the administrative record, the district court entered 

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judgment in favor of Miller. We review that decision de novo. See Donati v. Ford Motor Co., 

Gen. Ret. Plan, Ret. Comm., 821 F.3d 667, 671 (6th Cir. 2016). 

As an initial matter, the parties dispute whether we must review the Plan Administrator’s 

denial de novo or deferentially. See Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch, 489 U.S. 101, 115 

(1989). But that dispute is immaterial if the relevant plan terms are unambiguous, which is a 

question that we review de novo. See Adams v. Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc., 758 F.3d 743, 

747 (6th Cir. 2014). So we turn to that question first.

At issue here is whether Miller’s time as a leased employee counts as Credited Service as 

that term is used in the provisions that define the amount of his pension. The plan defines Credited 

Service as follows:

“Credited Service” is service that is used for purposes of eligibility for Plan 

participation and vesting, and shall mean, for any Employee, such Employee’s 

Company Service Credit. However, for purposes of determining whether a 

Participant has a vested right to the Participant’s Accrued Benefit, in any case 

where it will produce a result more favorable to the Employee, an Employee’s 

Credited Service shall be determined in accordance with the following provisions

. . . .

(f) If a leased employee has performed services for the Employer on a 

substantially full-time basis for a period of at least 12 months and becomes 

an Employee, his service as a leased employee shall be counted as Credited 

Service for participation and vesting purposes.

[R. 15-5 at 464-65.]

That definition provides two meanings for Credited Service. The first meaning is stated as 

a general rule: the term “shall mean . . . such Employee’s Company Service Credit[,]” which the 

plan elsewhere states is “the service used to determine the amount of a Participant’s Accrued 

Benefit for benefit accrual purposes[.]” (Emphasis added.) And the parties agree that the term 

“Company Service Credit” itself describes only the period after an employee “first performs an 

Hour of Service for a Participating Employer[.]” (Emphasis added.) The general rule as set forth 

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in the definition, therefore, is that an employee’s prior service as a leased employee does not count 

toward his Credited Service.

The second meaning applies “for purposes of determining whether a Participant has a 

vested right to the Participant’s Accrued Benefit[.]” For those purposes, Credited Service “shall 

be determined in accordance with” other “provisions,” one of which states that “service as a leased 

employee shall be counted as Credited Service for participation and vesting purposes.” Under this 

second meaning, then, Credited Service includes an employee’s time as a leased employee. 

Thus, Miller’s time as a leased employee counts as Credited Service for purposes of 

vesting, but not for the purpose of calculating the amount of his pension. Specifically, when Miller 

started work for Babcock, his 12 years as a leased employee met the vesting requirement that he 

have “at least five years of Credited Service[.]” And that meant he immediately had a vested right 

to any benefits that he might accrue going forward. But “the service that is used to determine the 

amount of” those benefits is limited to his Company Service Credit, which undisputedly did not 

include his time as a leased employee. (Emphasis added.) To the contrary, his Company Service 

Credit began on the date when Miller “first perform[ed] an Hour of Service for a Participating 

Employer[,]” which was December 6, 2004. Hence the Plan Administrator correctly denied 

Miller’s claim.

Miller argues that the plan’s drafters would not have used the term Credited Service in the 

provisions that define the amount of his pension if that term simply meant Company Service 

Credit. Yet the plan itself says that Credited Service generally “shall mean . . . Company Service 

Credit.” Hence this argument turns out to be a complaint about the circuitous definition of Credited 

Service. Perhaps, as Miller suggests, the plan’s language could have been shorter or simpler. But 

what matters here is clarity, not concision; and as shown above the relevant plan terms are clear.

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Miller also says that the Retirement Program conceded that Miller’s Credited Service 

begins in 1992 for all purposes. But the Retirement Program has conceded only that Miller’s 

Credited Service began in 1992 for purposes of vesting. 

Finally, Miller suggests that he was erroneously classified as a leased employee from 1992 

to 2004. But he failed to develop that argument, so it is forfeited on appeal. See United States v. 

Clark, 469 F.3d 568, 570 (6th Cir. 2006).

In sum, we are bound to enforce the plan’s terms. Those terms unambiguously support the 

Administrator’s decision. The district court’s judgment is therefore reversed, and the case is 

remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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