Opinion ID: 519533
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Betrayal Without Remedy.

Text: 35 In adjudicating disputes between labor and management with respect to the LMRA or ERISA, Congress intended that federal courts should create federal common law. See Textile Workers Union of Am. v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U.S. 448, 456-57, 77 S.Ct. 912, 917-18, 1 L.Ed.2d 972 (1957). However, this power extends only to areas which federal law preempts but does not address. See Wheeldin v. Wheeler, 373 U.S. 647, 651-52, 83 S.Ct. 1441, 1444-45, 10 L.Ed.2d 605 (1963); see also C. Wright, Law of Federal Courts Sec. 60 at 393-94 (4th ed. 1983). Degan presents us with a sympathetic, estoppel-based argument for fashioning federal common law that would prevent employers and union officials from consoling displaced employees like Degan with empty oral assurances about rights to pension benefits, especially when repudiation comes after years of expectations. The problem, however, is one for Congress and not this court to resolve, for we are bound by ERISA's emphatic preference for written agreements. 36 ERISA expressly requires that [e]very employee benefit plan shall be established and maintained pursuant to a written instrument. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 1102(a)(1). In addition, the written plans must provide a procedure for amending such plan, and for identifying the persons who have authority to amend the plan. Id. Sec. 1102(b)(3). Thus, ERISA mandates that the plan itself and any changes made to it were to be in writing. The reasons for Congress's strictures in this area are obvious: Oral agreements would undermine Congress's goal of fashioning a comprehensive system of federal law designed to strengthen and protect the interests of employees in their expected retirement benefits. See Shaw v. Delta Air Space, Inc., 463 U.S. at 90, 103 S.Ct. at 2896. (1983). 37 Applying the common-law concept of estoppel would mean presenting retirement plan administrators with claims for payment from individuals, otherwise ineligible, who were parties to oral agreements that, like the one before us, have lain unsuspected and inert for years. That prospect would threaten the stability and solvency of many plans upon which so many other employees are dependent. Hence, we join the other circuits that have held, consistently with the words of the statute, that ERISA precludes oral modifications to benefit plans and that claims of promissory estoppel are not cognizable in suits seeking to enforce rights to pension benefits. 8 38