Source: http://erisa-experts.com/blog/category/supreme-court-decisions/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 08:59:38+00:00

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At first glance, the Supreme Court’s recent decision interpreting “appropriate equitable relief” as used in ERISA § 502(a)(3) is a victory for health plan participants. But upon closer scrutiny, Montanile v. Board of Trustees of the National Elevator Industry Health Benefit Plan, 2016 U.S. LEXIS 843 (2016), is a mixed result for participants and plans.
The plan at issue paid $121,044.02 in medical expenses for a participant who was injured in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. The participant subsequently settled his claim against the drunk driver for $500,000. The plan contained a subrogation clause that provided the following: “[A]ny amounts [that a participant] recover[s] from another party by award, judgment, settlement or otherwise . . . will promptly be applied first to reimburse the Plan in full for benefits advanced by the Plan . . . and without reduction for attorneys’ fees, costs, expenses or damages claimed by the covered person.” Id. at *7 (internal quotations omitted). The plan further stated that “[a]mounts that have been recovered by a [participant] from another party are assets of the Plan . . . and are not distributable to any person or entity without the Plan’s written release of its subrogation interest.” Id. at *6-*7.
After the participant and the plan could not reach agreement regarding the plan’s entitlement to the funds recovered by the participant, the participant’s attorney distributed $240,000 (the amount remaining after payment of attorney’s fees and costs). The participant subsequently spent some or all of the $240,000 and the board of trustees asserted a claim under ERISA § 502(a)(3) against the participant to enforce the plan’s subrogation provision.
[The standard equity treatises] make clear that a plaintiff could ordinarily enforce an equitable lien only against specifically identified funds that remain in the defendant’s possession or against traceable items that the defendant purchased with the funds (e.g., identifiable property like a car). A defendant’s expenditure of the entire identifiable fund on nontraceable items (like food or travel) destroys an equitable lien.
While the facts of Montanile are sympathetic to the participant, in other instances, the Court’s reliance on standard equity treatises will likely continue to create impediments for participants seeking to obtain relief against nonfiduciaries pursuant to ERISA § 502(a)(3). In her dissent, Justice Ginsburg referred to the Court’s holding as “bizarre” and reiterated her opinion expressed in another dissent that “the Court [has] erred profoundly . . . by reading the work product of a Congress sitting in 1974 as unravel[ling] forty years of fusion of law and equity, solely by employing the benign sounding word ‘equitable’ when authorizing ‘appropriate equitable relief.’” Id. at *25 (some internal quotations omitted). Notably, in her concurrence in Aetna Health Inc. v. Davila, 542 U.S. 200, 223-24 (2004), Justice Ginsburg accurately interpreted the scope of relief available against fiduciaries under ERISA § 502(a)(3) years before the Supreme Court confirmed such interpretation in CIGNA Corp. v. Amara, 563 U.S. 421 (2011). It remains to be seen whether the Court will come around to her interpretation of ERISA § 502(a)(3) as it pertains to nonfiduciaries.
Moreover, in addition to bringing suit under ERISA § 502(a)(3) before a participant dissipates funds potentially subject to subrogation, a trustee may be able to recover funds from a participant under the theory that such funds constitute plan assets when the participant receives the funds. The Eleventh Circuit has applied a documentary test when determining whether particular funds constitute plan assets. See ITPE Pension Fund v. Hall, 334 F.3d 1011, 1013 (11th Cir. 2003). The language of the plan in Montanile appears to support an argument that the participant was handling plan assets. The theory would be that the participant is exercising authority or control over the management or disposition of plan assets and is, therefore, a fiduciary within the meaning of ERISA § 3(21)(A)(i). A suit could then be asserted against the participant/fiduciary on behalf of the plan pursuant to ERISA § 502(a)(2).
Accordingly, there may be more than meets the eye with regard to issues implicated by Montanile.
On June 25, 2015, the Supreme Court decided King v. Burwell, 576 U.S. ____, 192 L. Ed. 2d 483 (2015). The Court held that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the “Affordable Care Act”) permits tax credits in states in which the federal government has established health care exchanges. While most of the focus of commentators, understandably, has been on this substantive result, King is also interesting because of the Court’s analysis of Chevron deference.
Chevron deference is the principle articulated by the Court in Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), that, under certain circumstances, courts must defer to reasonable interpretations of agencies when a statute is ambiguous. In King, Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the Court, explained that Chevron deference assumes that Congress implicitly delegated authority to an agency to interpret “statutory gaps.” 192 L. Ed. 2d at 493 (internal quotations and citation omitted). But, in “extraordinary cases, . . . there may be reasons to hesitate before concluding that Congress has intended such an implicit delegation.” Id. at 493-94 (internal quotations and citations omitted). With regard to the availability of tax credits in states where exchanges have been established by the federal government, if Congress had desired to delegate authority to an agency, “it surely would have done so expressly.” Id. at 494. Moreover, the Court reasoned that Congress would not likely have delegated such an important decision to the Internal Revenue Service because of its lack of expertise regarding the subject matter. Accordingly, the Court decided King without any deference to the Internal Revenue Service’s interpretation of the Affordable Care Act.
This is not the first time that the Court has invoked what has come to be known as the “major questions doctrine.” See Adam White, Symposium: Defining deference down, SCOTUSblog, June 25, 2015, http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/06/symposium-defining-deference-down/. And although the result was necessary in King to avoid the possibility that a different administration could change its interpretation of the Affordable Care Act, it is also possible that King could signal a broader retreat from the Court’s application of Chevron deference. See id.
Is this likely to occur in the field of ERISA? There are a number of places in the statute where Congress expressly delegated interpretative authority to the Secretary of Labor. For example, ERISA § 503, which addresses the claims procedure that must be provided by employee benefit plans (including retirement and health and welfare plans), expressly grants the Secretary authority to promulgate a regulation. Perhaps more importantly, ERISA § 505 grants broad authority to the Secretary to promulgate regulations relating to Title I. Therefore, the major questions doctrine is not likely to play a role with regard to the Secretary’s interpretative authority as it pertains to most significant ERISA issues.
Finally, one quick note regarding a previous post is necessary to close the book for now on King. The prior post discussed a method of predicting the outcome of Supreme Court cases based on the number of questions asked by the Justices to each side. This method predicted the wrong outcome in King. However, in fairness, the professor who has been collecting data on the method had placed the case in the toss-up category. And Justice Roberts asked only one question. So, from an empirical standpoint, the case probably does not tell us much about the ultimate ability of the method to consistently predict the outcome of Supreme Court decisions.
Since there have already been a number of thoughtful posts regarding the proposed ERISA fiduciary regulation that was issued by the Department of Labor on April 14, 2015, this blog strays from that subject to make a few observations about King v. Burwell—the latest challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the “ACA”) pending before the Supreme Court.
King involves an interpretation of a section of the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”) added by the ACA. Code § 36B addresses the availability of premium tax credits for low to moderate income purchasers of insurance through health care exchanges established under the ACA.
Premium tax credits are made available for eligible taxpayers “enrolled through an Exchange established by the State under [section] 1311 [of the ACA].” 26 U.S.C. § 36B(b)(2)(A). Exchanges under the ACA were to be established pursuant to one of three methods: i) by the state pursuant to ACA § 1311; ii) by the federal government and state partnering pursuant to ACA § 1321; and iii) by the federal government pursuant to ACA § 1321. In 2012, the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) promulgated a regulation that interpreted the relevant language of Code § 36B to include those “enrolled in one or more qualified health plans through an exchange,” meaning that the tax credits would be available to eligible taxpayers regardless of how an exchange was established in a particular state. Thereafter, 34 states declined to establish exchanges and, as contemplated by the ACA, the Department of Health and Human Services set up exchanges in those states.
The question before the Supreme Court is whether the IRS’ interpretation is a permissible construction of Code § 36B. An agency cannot interpret a statute contrary to the “unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.” Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 843 (1984).
Judging by the questions at oral argument, Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor appear to be in favor of upholding the IRS’ interpretation as a permissible construction of Code § 36B while Justices Alito and Scalia appear to be in the opposite camp. Thus, the count appears to be four to three without a clear indication of where Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Kennedy will come out—this assumes that Justice Thomas is with the latter group since, as usual, he did not ask any questions at oral argument.
Of course, it is a dangerous exercise to attempt to predict the outcome of a case based on the questions asked by the Justices. But, interestingly, Professor Ed Lee of ITT Chicago-Kent College of Law has applied a method of predicting the outcome of Supreme Court cases to King based on exactly that. Simply put, “the party that receives the most questions from the Justices during oral argument is more likely to lose.” Edward Lee, Ed Lee: Predicting the Winners, ITT Chicago-Kent College of Law SCOTUS Now, http://blogs.kentlaw.iit.edu/iscotus/lee-predicting-winners/. Professor Lee credits Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit and Professors Lee Epstein of Washington University and William Landes of the University of Chicago Law School with having performed a statistical analysis of this method. See Lee Epstein, William M. Landes, & Richard A. Posner, Inferring the Winning Party in the Supreme Court from the Pattern of Questioning at Oral Argument, 39 J. Legal Stud. 433 (2010).
A decision in King is expected in the next few months so we shall soon find out.
Is Williston on Contracts The Sacred Text for Interpretation of ERISA Plans?
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court emphasized that collective bargaining agreements establishing ERISA welfare plans generally must be construed in accordance with ordinary principles of contract interpretation. See M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, 135 S. Ct. 926 (2015). The Court rejected the Sixth Circuit’s inferences in favor of vesting of retiree health care benefits outlined in International Union, United Auto, Aerospace, & Agricultural Implement Workers of America v. Yard-Man, Inc., 716 F.2d 1476, 1479 (6th Cir. 1983). Counting the concurring opinion, the Court cited Williston on Contracts no less than seven times when describing ordinary principles of contract interpretation. See Tackett, 135 S. Ct. at 933, 935-938 (citing R. Lord, Williston on Contracts (4th ed. 2008 & 2012)). The majority also cited Williston on Contracts in US Airways, Inc. v. McCutchen, 133 S. Ct. 1537, 1549 (2013), and Justice Scalia cited the treatise in his concurrence in Cigna Corp. v. Amara, 131 S. Ct. 1866, 1884 (2011).
ERISA practitioners familiar with the Supreme Court’s interpretive history of the phrase “other appropriate equitable relief,” as used in ERISA § 502(a)(3), will recall the Court’s frequent references to the Restatement of Trusts, Bogert & Bogert’s Law of Trusts and Trustees, and Scott & Fratcher’s Law of Trusts (now Scott & Ascher on Trusts), sometimes referred to as The Sacred Texts. See Jacklyn Willie, Attorneys Reflect on 40 Years of ERISA’s Biggest Rulings, Bloomberg BNA Pension & Benefits Daily, Sept. 9, 2014, at 2.
In light of the Court’s recent decisions, Williston on Contracts might be viewed as The Sacred Text when it comes to benefit plan interpretation. But this is by no means a foregone conclusion. The Supreme Court has characterized Corbin on Contracts as a “standard current work.” Great-West Life Annuity Ins. Co. v. Knudson, 534 U.S. 204, 217 (2002). Indeed, in Tackett, 135 S. Ct. at 936, the Court also cited Corbin on Contracts. Of course, Arthur Corbin and Samuel Williston famously disagreed on a number of fundamental principles relating to contractual interpretation, such as the proper application of the parol evidence rule. See Eric A. Posner, The Parol Evidence Rule, the Plain Meaning Rule, and the Principles of Contractual Interpretation, 146 U. Pa. L. Rev. 533, 568-69 (1998).
The cite count is high, but scholars have tended to look to Williston only in passing, referencing him when they have needed a source for some black-letter proposition or some point of legal history. In part, this indifference stems from the fact that most of Williston’s work is of a doctrinal and case-oriented style that has fallen out of vogue. . . . Over time, the conventional wisdom has lumped Williston together with the great villains of contemporary jurisprudence, the classical formalists, portraying him as a mindless reactionary obsessed with logic and conceptual abstraction.
Elaborating upon what some perceive to be failings of Williston’s work, Professor Movsesian pointed out that Harvard Law Professor Morton Horwitz has asserted that “Williston’s objective theory of contract acts to ‘disguise gross disparities of bargaining power under a facade of neutral and formal rules.'” Id. at 226 (citation omitted).
Back to the realm of ERISA, in Tackett, the Supreme Court suggested that it would not be appropriate to apply ordinary contract law principles when such principles are “inconsistent with federal labor policy.” 135 S. Ct. at 933. And, in addition to the fact that ERISA expressly states that one of its purposes is to protect the interests of participants and beneficiaries, some commentators have contended that ERISA plans are adhesion contracts. See, e.g., John H. Langbein, Trust Law as Regulatory Law: The Unum/Provident Scandal and Judicial Review of Benefit Denials Under ERISA, 101 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1315, 1323 (2007) (“ERISA benefit plans are characteristic contracts of adhesion, offered on a take-the-plan-or-leave-the-job basis.”).
Thus, it is unclear whether all of the principles of contractual interpretation associated with Samuel Williston are consistent with the “special nature and purpose of employee benefit plans.” Varity Corp. v. Howe, 516 U.S. 489, 497 (1997).
Because ERISA cases frequently involve disputes over benefit plan interpretation, we will likely have the opportunity to observe whether the Court will continue to rely upon Williston on Contracts to articulate ordinary principles of contract interpretation. If this turns out to be the case, considering the fact that the treatise currently consists of 31 volumes, there is certainly plenty of material for the Court to draw from in framing the “ordinary contract principles” that must be applied to employee benefit plans.

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