NOT RECOMMENDED F OR F ULL-TEXT PUBLICATION F ile Nam e: 13a0518n.06
No. 12-2049
UNITED STAT ES COURT OF AP P EALS F OR THE S IXTH CIRCUIT
MARY KERN, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. CHRYSL ER UAW PENS I ON, Def endant- Appellee

. ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ON APPEAL FROM THE UNI TED STATES DI STRI CT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DI STRI CT OF MI CHI GAN

Be fore : COL E and COOK, Circ uit J udg es; Katz, District J udg e *

PER CURI AM. I n this ERI SA action, Plaintiff Mary Ker n seeks widow’s benef

its under the pension plan of h er l at e h u s b and’s employ er, Chry sler Group L L C. At the time of his death, the couple ha d been ma

rried le ss than four months. The plan administrator denied benef its, citing the plan’s one-y ear -marr iag e elig ibilit y require ment, and the district court—a dopting the mag istrate judge ’s detailed repor

t and rec ommendation—g rante d judgme nt on the administrative rec ord to the plan. Ker

n now appea ls, raising essentially the same argument that she prese nted to the d i s t ri ct
court: that the administrator improperly applied the one-year -marr iag e rule in the widow’s benef its context, contrary

to the plan’s languag e and E RI SA. We disagr ee a nd AFF I RM.

The Honora

ble David A. Ka t z , Un ited States District J udg e for the Norther n District of * Ohio, sitti ng by

desig nation.No. 12-2049

Kern v. Chrysler UAW

Pension

Be cause this ERI SA plan vests the administrator with discretion “to interpre t the [p] lan and deter mine elig ibilit y for

. . . benef its,” we revie w its interpre tation under the “hig hly defe rential arbitra ry and ca pricious standar d.” Haus v. Be chtel Jac obs Co., LL C , 491 F.3d 557, 561 (6th Cir. 2007). Acc ording ly , we will aff irm “so long as it is possible to offe r a rea soned explanation, based

on the evidenc e, for [t he administrator’s decision].” Price v. Bd. of Trs. of Ind. Laborer’s Pension Fund , 707 F.3d 647, 651 ( 6th Cir. 2013) (citations and interna l quotation marks omitted).

The administrator here , Chry sler Group L L C-UAW Pension Boa rd of Administration, rea ds the pl an’s ter

ms as requiring one y ear of m arr iag e before widow’s benefits attach, consistent with
ERI SA’s simil ar exception to its mandate of surviving spouse benef its, 29 U.S.C. § 1055(f) (1). That provision states that a qualifying ERI SA pl an “m ay provide that a qualified joint and survivor annuity (or a qualified prer etireme nt survivor annuity ) will not be provided unless the participa nt and
spouse had been marrie d throug hout the 1-y ear period ending on the ear lier of (A) the participa nt’s annuity startingdate, or

(B ) the date of the pa

rticipant’s de ath.” Id.
Although she ap p ears to acknow ledg e that this provision permits a qualifying plan to condition b en efits on a y ear ’s marria g e, she claims that this plan failed to incorporate § 1055(f) (1)( B) ’s exception. (Appe llant Br. at 17 (“[T]he administ rator c hose to addre ss one-ha lf of the permissible exceptions by draf ting [pl an] languag e that is clea rly intended wher e a participa nt retire s while marrie d less than one y ear . . . . [But it] did not incorporate the one-y ear prior to de ath exception within the Widow’s/ W i d o we r’s Pension Be nefit section.”) .) L ikening the situation to

- 2 -No. 12-2049

Kern v. Chrysler UAW

Pension

insurance law, wher e courts ty pically require clea

r lang uag e befor e enfor cing cover ag e exceptions,

see, e.g. , Ins. Co. of Pen n
. v. Co n t ’l Nat’l Indem

. Co. , 7 F. App’x 503, 507 (6th Cir. 2001), Ker n
argues t hat t he adminis trator read a missing ex clusion into the plan lang uag e. The plan lang uag e, though c omplex , belies this claim.

As the district court ex p l ai n ed, section (9)B , addre ssing widow’s pension benef its, limit s elig ibilit y to “the surviving spouse of an employ ee . . . (ii) who, if he had retire d at t he date of hi s death, would have been elig ible to make the elec tion unde r [s] ection (9)A [t he term detailing “The Reg ular Surviving Spouse Option” benef its] .” (A.R. at 161–62.) Section (9)A.2., in turn, provides:
[The employ ee’ s] automatic elec tion [of a reduc ed monthly pension benef it] shall be deeme d to have been made at the tim e t h at t h e empl oy ee applies for a monthly pension

. . . and the eff

ective date of the elec tion shall be t h e date his monthly pension commenc es except . . . : (a) I n the case of an employ ee who i s m ar ri ed when his elec tion would otherwise become eff

ective but wh o s e m arr iag e at that date has been continuously in eff

ect for less than one y ear , the effective date of his elec tion shall be the first day of the month follow ing t h e mo n t h in which such marriage has bee n continuously in effect for one y ear.
(A.R. at 157–58 (empha sis added) .) Apply ing that provision h ere , Ker n could never qualify for surviving spouse benef

its—and by extension, widow’s benef its— beca use her husband died without apply ing for a pension (Appe llant Br

. at 14), and his untimely death fore closed the ear liest possible eff ective date for elec ting the benef its, “the first day of the month f ollowing” their marria g e’s oney ear anniver sary .

- 3 -No. 12-2049

Kern v. Chrysler UAW

Pension

Ker n deride s this interpr etation as employing a “fic tion that [her late husband] ha d applied for pe nsion benefits and se lected his a nnuity starting date.” But that is t he nature of the condition in section (9)B (ii), asking whether the dece dent would have been elig ible to make the elec tion under section (9)A if he had retire d at the d at e of his death. Other than resisting this nece ssary hy pothetical, Ker

n does not sug g es t t h at h er husband qualified under section (9)A. We need not consider whether the plan should have employ ed simpler languag e or the administrator could have ruled differ ently

. I t suffice s that the administrator rea sonably applied the plan lang uag e in denying widow’s bene fits. 1

Be cause Ker

n fails to show that the administrator acte d in an arbitra ry or capr icious manner , we AF FI RM.

Ker n appea rs to advanc e two addi t i onal arguments premised on a 2001 Summary Plan 1 Document and cer

tain provisions of the tax code

. She forf eited these arguments by not prese rving them in her objection to the mag istrate judge ’s repor t and rec ommendation or failing to develop them in her appellate briefing

. See, e.g. , United States v. Johnson , 4 4 0 F. 3 d 8 3 2 , 846 (6th Cir. 2006) (dec linin g t o co n s ider an issue that did not appea r in the statement of issues and rec eived only “per functory” treatment in t h e b ri ef); cf. CIGNA Corp. v. Amara , 131 S. Ct. 1866, 1877 (2011) (re jecting the argument that summary plan terms “may be enfor ced (under [ER I SA] § 502(a) (1)( B) ) as the terms of the [ER I SA] plan itself”); Sprague v. Gen. Motors Corp. , 133 F.3d 388, 401 (6th Cir. 1998) (en banc) (“A n omission from the summary plan descr iption doe s n o t, by neg ative implication, alter the terms of the pla

n itself.”). - 4 -