Opinion ID: 578650
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Alternate sources of statutory construction

Text: 20 Canteen asks that we look beyond the statute itself--to legislative history, notices of the IRS, case law, and the absurdity of the result in this case--for an answer in its favor. Because the statute, at least as applied to the amendments in this case, is clear and unambiguous, we need not reach so far for help in construing it. We shall, however, briefly mention Canteen's arguments, which would fail even if we found them necessary to consider. 21 Congress originally proposed an advance notice provision only for amendments that completely freeze or terminate certain plans. 5 If that original intention had prevailed, it would probably not have applied to Davidson and Toney. But Congress passed a law that did not embody that intent. It broadened the law's language to reach a case such as this. A lack of recorded legislative intent on this subject does not mean that the effects of clear statutory language were not intended. Legislative silence cannot win this case for Canteen. 22 Nor can we find in notices of the IRS the answer that Canteen says it finds in them. The IRS has commented on three model plan amendments to help plan sponsors remain within the rules of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. 6 Although the IRS indicated that ERISA would not require advance notice of an amendment that would exclude compensation in excess of $200,000, none of those model amendments is similar to the amendment in this case. 7 Even if we were to defer to an IRS interpretation of ERISA, we cannot read that interpretation to say that § 204(h) does not apply to any amendment that reduces the amount of the participant's compensation. 23 Case law offers Canteen no more help. Section 204(h) has been the subject of only a few published cases. We cannot find the support that Canteen needs, and says it finds, in three cases that apply § 204(h) to amendments that reduced benefits for all plan participants. 8 No case suggests that § 204(h) would not apply in other situations, as where the benefits of only some participants were reduced. 24 Finally, Canteen suggests that the district court's summary judgment must be reversed because it reaches an absurd result, and fails to resolve internal inconsistencies in the law. We do not agree. The so-called absurd result in this case strikes us as sound, and legally correct. The amendment of a retirement plan to deprive some of the plan's participants of a benefit they were promised, when advance notice of that amendment would have allowed them to prevent injury from the amendment, is exactly what § 204(h) clearly outlaws. The burden such a notice requirement places on a plan sponsor is a burden Congress must have weighed, and decided to ignore (or to counterbalance with the word significant), in drafting and passing § 204(h). The result is not absurd.