Opinion ID: 1466164
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Materials Outside Complaint

Text: Deere's motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) included a number of attached documents: seven Summary Plan Descriptions (SPDs), two SPD supplements, the Trust Agreement between Fidelity Trust and Deere, and three fund prospectuses that it had retrieved from Fidelity's website. According to plaintiffs, this amounted to some 900 pages of material. Fidelity's motion added two more trust agreements to the mix. Plaintiffs objected to the introduction of these documents, arguing that they were matters outside the pleadings within the meaning of Rule 12(d), and thus that the court should have converted the two motions into motions for summary judgment. The district court, however, found that these were all documents to which the Complaint had referred, that the documents were concededly authentic, and that they were central to the plaintiffs' claim. See Tierney v. Vahle, 304 F.3d 734, 738 (7th Cir. 2002). If the court erred in this respect, we would be able to dispense with most of the rest of this appeal, since it would be necessary to remand on this basis alone. This court has been relatively liberal in its approach to the rule articulated in Tierney and other cases. See, e.g., Wright v. Associated Ins. Cos., 29 F.3d 1244, 1248 (7th Cir.1994) (upholding consideration of an agreement quoted in the complaint and central to the question whether a property interest existed for purposes of 42 U.S.C. § 1983); Venture Associates v. Zenith Data Sys., 987 F.2d 429, 431 (7th Cir.1992) (admitting letters, to which the complaint referred, that established the parties' contractual relationship); Ed Miniat, Inc. v. Globe Life Ins. Group, Inc., 805 F.2d 732, 739 (7th Cir.1986) (permitting reference to a welfare plan referred to in the complaint in order to decide whether the plan qualifies under ERISA). Plaintiffs see the case of Travel Over the World v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 73 F.3d 1423 (7th Cir.1996), as a counterexample, but we do not read it that way. In Travel Over the World, the plaintiffs contested the authenticity of the document that defendants wanted to use; here, they do not. Although they argue that certain statements in the documents are untrue (such as the representation that Deere pays all administrative costs associated with the Plans), the district court took plaintiffs' point of view on all such disputes. Deere and the two Fidelity defendants offered the documents only to show what they disclosed to plaintiffs; nothing plaintiffs have argued explains why the documents could not be used in that limited way. For the purpose to which they were put, the SPDs, the SPD supplements, and the Trust Agreement fit within the exception to Rule 12(d)'s general instruction. The Complaint explicitly refers to the SPDs and the Trust Agreement, and both are central to plaintiffs' case: the SPDs reveal the disclosures that Deere made to the Plan participants, and the Trust Agreement throws light on the relationship between Fidelity Trust and Deere. The supplements to the SPDs, while not mentioned separately in the Complaint, serve much the same purpose as the originals. The Complaint did not mention the prospectuses, but these were publicly available documents and thus relevant to the question of disclosure. In a similar situation, the Second Circuit held that a court could take notice of a prospectus in a securities fraud case. See I. Meyer Pincus & Assocs., P.C. v. Oppenheimer & Co., 936 F.2d 759, 762 (2d Cir.1991); see also Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisc. v. Thompson, 161 F.3d 449, 456 (7th Cir. 1998) (permitting consideration on a motion for judgment on the pleadings under Rule 12(c) of historical papers relating to negotiation of a treaty with Native American Tribe). Taking into account the limited purpose to which the prospectuses were put here, the district court acted within its discretion when it chose not to convert the defendants' motion under Rule 12(b)(6) to a motion for summary judgment.