Opinion ID: 2751752
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Standing and Damages - 1991 Contract

Text: Just as it framed its award of relief to VALIC against the Board based on the individual annuity contracts, the trial court proceeded similarly in granting relief to VALIC against IMB. With regard to the 1991 Contract, the circuit court narrowly framed the issue as being controlled by the signatories to the contract. For many of the same reasons we discarded VALIC’s arguments regarding the Board’s right to seek relief under the 2008 Contract,41 we find VALIC’s attempt to corral the relief and the parties with regard to the 1991 Contract to be similarly unavailing. As an initial observation, we note the irony inherent to VALIC’s position that the IMB has no standing to seek relief concerning the 1991 Contract. In regards to the 2008 Contract, VALIC purposefully sought to elevate the role the IMB occupies as trustee of TRS charged with investing TRS assets compared to the “purely administrative” role the Board fills. Having thus cast the IMB as the paramount trustee in view of its statutory charge to invest TRS assets and its attendant responsibility for realizing returns on those investments, VALIC now seeks to paint the IMB out of the investment picture with regard to the 1991 Contract. This construct does not withstand analysis. 41 See supra, Section III.A.2. 24 VALIC argues that the IMB “does not have any, much less a significant or substantial, interest in the 1991 Contract.” In making this argument, VALIC relies upon the fact that the Board, rather than the IMB, is charged with making investments for the DCP. If the issues surrounding the 1991 Contract were limited to enforcing those contractual terms for purposes of the non-electing DCP participants, VALIC’s position might resonate more convincingly. Rather than maintaining investments subject to the 1991 Contract, however, the subject proceedings were initiated by the petitioners to secure the withdrawal of those funds. As the trustee charged with investing TRS assets, the IMB had a statutory mandate to timely obtain the funds of those DCP members who elected to join TRS. See W.Va. Code §§ 18-7D-5, -7. “[O]nce the transfer legislation was enacted,” as VALIC acknowledges, “the transferring teacher’s funds belonged to the TRS.” Given that the underlying action was instituted to obtain funds that the IMB was statutorily charged to invest, the IMB had a clear right to join the Board in seeking a declaration of rights as to the 1991 Contract. See W.Va. Code §§ 12-6-9a., 18-7D-5. The IMB, like the Board, was acting on behalf of the public employees participating in TRS. Apparently lost on VALIC is the fact that the IMB was not seeking to enforce rights arising from a private contract, but rights emanating from a contract designed for the purpose of public employees and their beneficiaries. Consequently, we have no difficulty in finding that the IMB properly acted pursuant to its statutory grant of powers to “[s]ue and be sued” when 25 it jointly instituted the subject suit with the Board. W.Va. Code § 12-6-5 (2014). Further evidence of error arises from the trial court’s ruling that VALIC’s issuance of the 2008 Contract necessarily eliminated any harm that the IMB may have suffered related to the 1991 Contract. Just as we rejected this finding with regard to the Board’s inability to establish damages arising from the 1991 Contract,42 we similarly view this related conclusion as baseless. Whether the IMB can establish that it incurred damages as a direct result of its failure to obtain the assets of the electing DCP members in aggregate fashion remains to be proven. It is not, however, a foregone conclusion as the trial court suggests. Rather than having a preclusive effect, the issuance of the 2008 Contract is integrally linked to whether the IMB can demonstrate injury arising from the 1991 Contract.43 Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s finding that the IMB lacks standing in relation to seeking and obtaining a declaration of rights and/or relief under the 1991 Contract.