Opinion ID: 459860
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: reviewability of clpt's reasoning

Text: 14 In addition to quarreling with the district court's findings on the exclusion rate of CLPT's pension plan, CLPT believes that the district court did not have jurisdiction to review CLPT's reasoning for maintaining the 15-year vesting requirement, despite the Ponce I directive to do so. This is a question of law, subject to de novo review. United States v. McConney, 728 F.2d 1195, 1201 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 813, 105 S.Ct. 101, 83 L.Ed.2d 46 (1984). 15 There is no question that review of the trustee's rationale is within the district court's jurisdiction. See, e.g., Music v. Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Trust Fund, 712 F.2d 413, 416 (9th Cir.1983); Elser v. I.A.M. National Pension Fund, 684 F.2d 648, 652 (9th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 813, 104 S.Ct. 67, 78 L.Ed.2d 82 (1983). There are, however, limitations as to the extent of that review; the court must allow trustees broad discretion. Their decisions will stand unless arbitrary and capricious. Id.; see also Sailer v. Retirement Fund Trust of the Plumbing, Heating & Piping Industry, 599 F.2d 913, 914 (9th Cir.1979). 16 Once again CLPT incorrectly relies on Miranda. CLPT compares the factual underpinnings in Miranda to those here, including facts stipulated in this case which also existed in Miranda. CLPT suggests that because reasonableness was found in Miranda on those facts, it must be found here. As we have already said, however, the Miranda trustees' reasons for maintaining a 15-year vesting requirement were different from and more convincing than those of CLPT. 17 The chief justification for the vesting requirement in Miranda was the existence of provisions which loosened eligibility requirements despite the high exclusion rate. Those provisions were: 18 1. Lowering from 65 to 62 the age at which benefits could be obtained with 15 years of service; 19 2. Removing retirement age requirements completely for employees with 25 years service; 20 3. Relaxing standards for curing a break in service; 21 4. Establishing national reciprocity agreements under which credited service with one local could be transferred to another. 22 681 F.2d at 1126. 23 Two of these provisions, the second and the fourth, were adopted by CLPT between 1962 and 1967. 24 The district court was instructed by this court to make its findings in light of CLPT's determination in 1970 not only to keep the 15-year vesting requirement but also to increase benefits to those who were eligible. 628 F.2d at 544. CLPT offered the following justifications for its decision: 25 a. CLPT's belief that employees who had accrued less than 15 years of credited service were not entitled to pension benefits; 26 b. CLPT's goal of providing sufficient income to pensioners to enable them to retire in comfort; and, 27 c. CLPT's goal of providing sufficient incentive to qualified employees to reduce employee turnover. 28 Ponce, 582 F.Supp. at 1318. CLPT maintains that by rejecting its justification for the high exclusion rate, the court substituted its judgment for that of the trustees, and imposed an unwarranted best possible balance test instead of examining the standard for reasonableness. 29 The trial judge dealt with each CLPT justification in turn. The first he dismissed summarily, 582 F.Supp. at 1318, but correctly. The trustees' belief that many people are not entitled to benefits is not the same as a decision to increase benefits to those who are eligible. 30 With regard to the second and third justifications, the trial judge found that the evidence did not support the contention that the exclusion rule forwarded CLPT's purported goals. Id. Nor does it; the parties' stipulations and the testimony presented at trial indicate that a number of factors contribute to the industry employment turnover rate. CLPT has not shown that its pension plan successfully has retained career laborers who would otherwise have left. In addition, this court has made it clear that providing more income to fewer recipients is not by itself an acceptable goal. Ponce I, 628 F.2d at 544. 31 CLPT's burden was to present a creditable justification for its long vesting requirement and high exclusion rate. Neither this court nor the district court would have to go so far as to substitute its judgment for that of the trustees to find CLPT had not met that burden. 32