Opinion ID: 760887
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Fischer II Three-Factor Test

Text: 27 IBM argues that the Fischer II test is more stringent than that of Muse and that it should be adopted by this court. Under the Fischer II test, however, as under the Muse test, the grant of summary judgment is still erroneous, as the available evidence demonstrates that the three factors for serious consideration were fulfilled in this case as of October 4, 1990, the date of the Management Committee meeting. 28
29 Under Fischer II, the requirement of a specific proposal is intended to assure that serious consideration is not found to occur before a proposal is sufficiently concrete to support consideration by senior management. The proposal, however, does not need to be in final form. When the district court found serious consideration not to have occurred until January 23, 1991, it did not find that the three factors had coalesced until a finalized proposal was put before the Management Committee. This is contrary to not only the thrust, but also the very language of the Third Circuit's discussion of the first factor. Just as IBM may be said to have formulated a particular plan under the Muse test on or before October 4, 1990, it was working with a proposal which was specific enough to support consideration by senior management as of that date. 30
31 As of October 4, 1990, the retirement plan redesign process had reached the Management Committee, which had the power to approve a plan for implementation. Notwithstanding IBM's characterization of the meeting as a for your information meeting, the result of the meeting was that employees working on the plan were directed to finalize the plan's design strategy. It does not matter that the committee did not implement or approve a plan at that meeting and did not meet for that purpose. It was not a meeting simply for preliminary consideration of alternatives or strategy formulation; it is enough that the practicalities of implementation, were a subject of the meeting. See Fischer II, 96 F.3d at 1540. 32
33 This is the factor upon which the district court purported to make its decision (At most, the events at IBM in October 1990 encompass only the first two elements of the 'serious consideration' test.). Because it found that senior management was not sufficiently involved in the process to find serious consideration until the Management Committee was presented with a finalized proposal, it did not reach the other factors in any great detail. The district court erred, however, in its analysis of this factor in light of the facts of this case. Fischer II distinguishes periodic review discussions and recommendations to upper-level management which are in the ordinary course of an employee's duties from consideration by senior management with authority to implement changes. Although the district court found the Management Committee to be possessed with enough authority to suffice for this factor (it found serious consideration as of the date the Management Committee reviewed a finalized proposal), it felt that the three factors were not fulfilled until the senior management had seen a finalized proposal. This application of the factors is contrary to the language used in Fischer II where it states that a plan need not be in its final form in order for the three factors to coalesce to form an overall picture of serious consideration. 34 In this case, on October 4, 1990, the proposal was considered to be sufficiently concrete to present to senior management for discussion on issues of implementation. A meeting with the Management Committee, a group with the authority to approve a plan for implementation, was indeed held on that date and the outline of that meeting indicates that implementation strategies were discussed. 35 For the above reasons, serious consideration occurred on October 4, 1990. The district court therefore erred in granting summary judgment to IBM as to the claims of those members of the plaintiff class who retired after October 4, 1990. Issues of material fact remain as to whether the alleged representations were in fact materially misleading and whether plaintiffs in fact relied upon those representations.