Opinion ID: 1435113
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Deferred Compensation under the Top Hat Plans

Text: The district court concluded that Xcel, as plan administrator, appropriately denied deferred compensation benefits to the Appellants because the clear language of each of the plans revealed that the Appellants' benefits were covered by either the 1992 Restatement or the 2002 Restatement, both of which required the Appellants to seek benefits solely from their last employer, NRG. ( See Appellants' App. at 172, 1992 Restatement § 2 (Payments shall be made only by the Participating Employer which last employed the Participant before payments commence.); id. at 117, 2002 Restatement, § 5.9 (Payment of distributions from this Plan shall be made only by the Employer which last employed the Participant before payments commence.).) Appellants succinctly define [t]he only issue [as] whether the 2000 Statement was a stand-alone plan or one of a series of amendments to the underlying Plan. (Appellants' Br. at 26.) In arguing that the 2000 Statement was an amendment to the original Top Hat Plan, the Appellants rely heavilynearly exclusivelyon admissions made by Xcel in response to Plaintiffs' Requests for Admissions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 36. During discovery, Xcel forwarded a copy of the 2000 Statement to Appellants along with the other plans in response to a request for documents. Prior to this time, the 2000 Statement had not been at issue; in fact, the Appellants' alleged rights to recover under its terms was never raised in the administrative proceedings. In its Responses to Plaintiffs' Request for Admissions No. 10, which asked Xcel to [a]dmit the 2002 Restatement signed on January 6, 2003, amended the 2000 Statement (Appellants' App. at 261), Xcel object[ed] to this Request because the 2002 Restatement amended the Top Hat Plan which was created in the 1980s, of which the 2000 Statement was one of a series of amendments to the underlying plan ( id. ). Subject to that objection, Xcel admitted that the 2002 Restatement amended the 2000 Statement. In other admissions, Xcel admitted the content of various sections of the 2000 Statement to the extent that the Request for Admissions quoted directly from the plan language, but continually denied any request that sought to establish the 2000 Statement as applicable to the Appellants, asserting instead that the Appellants' claims were covered by the 2002 Restatement. Xcel did not assert that the 2000 Statement was a stand-alone plan until after the district court denied its first motion for summary judgment. That the 2000 Statement was a stand-alone plan formed the basis for Xcel's subsequent motion for summary judgment, which the district court granted. We agree with the Appellants that as a general rule, admissions made in response to a Rule 36 request for admissions are binding on that party. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 36(b) (Any matter admitted under this rule is conclusively established unless the court on motion permits withdrawal or amendment of the admission.). Following the district court's first denial of summary judgment on the deferred compensation claim, Xcel submitted the affidavit of Parker Newcomb, III, a Senior Attorney for NSP in 2000 when the 2000 Statement was created, and later its Vice President of Total Compensation and Human Resource Operations, who left Xcel in 2004. Newcomb stated in his affidavit that the 2000 Statement was a newly created plan, that it was not a restatement of the 1992 Restatement, and that none of the Appellants was covered by the 2000 Statement because they were not employed by NSP when it was created. While self-serving subsequent affidavits that conflict with a prior Rule 36 admission may not warrant setting aside the admission, the district court did not rely only on Newcomb's subsequent affidavit filed by Xcel. Rather, the court looked to the language of the 2000 Statement itself as well as language from the 2002 Restatement, which recounted the history of the relevant deferred compensation plans. Rule 36 allows a party to withdraw or amend an admission when the presentation of the merits of the action will be subserved thereby and the party who obtained the admission fails to satisfy the court that withdrawal or amendment will prejudice [him]. Fed.R.Civ.P. 36(b); see also Beatty v. United States, 983 F.2d 908, 909 (8th Cir.1993) (allowing a late amendment and noting that the plaintiff was not prejudiced by the amended admission; rather he [wa]s prejudiced by the true facts contained in the [late] response). The district court did not err in considering the plain language of the documents to supercede the admission made by Xcel. See F.D.I.C. v. Prusia, 18 F.3d 637, 641 (8th Cir.1994) (Permitting the amendment of responses to a request for admissions is in the interests of justice if the record demonstrates that the `admitted' facts are contrary to the actual facts.); Kerry Steel, Inc. v. Paragon Indus., Inc., 106 F.3d 147, 153-54 (6th Cir.1997) (affirming district court that deemed counsel's argument to be a request to withdraw a prior admission). We turn then to the language of the plans to assess whether the district court properly concluded that the Appellants were not participants in the 2000 Statement and therefore could not maintain their action against Xcel for deferred compensation benefits. If the 2000 Statement does not apply to the Appellants, they must comply with either the 1992 Restatement or the 2002 Restatement to recover their deferred compensation benefits, both of which require the Appellants to look only to their last employer, NRG, for payments. We agree with the district court that the 2000 Statement was a separate plan from the 1992 Restatement, and the only evidence in the record reveals that the Appellants were participants in the 1992 Restatement, but not in the 2000 Statement. The 2000 Statement is titled NSP Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plan, and states that it is First Effective January 1, 2000. (Appellants' App. at 79.) It further provides that [e]ffective January 1, 2000, Northern States Power Company . . . (hereinafter sometimes referred to as Principal Sponsor) hereby creates a nonqualified, unfunded, elective deferral plan for the purposes of allowing a select group of management and highly compensated employees of the Principal Sponsor and other Employers to defer the receipt of compensation which would otherwise be paid to those employees. ( Id. at 83 (emphasis added).) In 2002, following the merger of NSP and New Century Energies, Xcel restated the 2000 Statement and merged several top hat plans into it. The 2002 Plan is titled Xcel Energy Inc. Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plan (2002 Restatement) ( id. at 102) and explains in its Purpose section that NSP and New Century Energies, Inc. had each established nonqualified deferred compensation plans and that the two companies had merged as of August 2000 to become Xcel. It further explains that in addition to the NSP Deferred Compensation Plan, which was restated as amended through January 1, 1992, and referred to as the NSP 1992 Plan, [e]ffective January 1, 2000, NSP established this Plan, the NSP Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plan (2000 Statement). ( Id. (emphasis added).) It further explained that [e]ffective January 1, 2002, this restatement of the NSP Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plan was adopted and the name of the Plan was changed to the `Xcel Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plan,' effective as to amounts credited to Accounts on and after January 1, 2002. ( Id. ) Finally, the 2002 Restatement provided that as of such date [January 1, 2002] or such subsequent date as the Committee may select the Committee would cause to be transferred all benefits previously credited to Participant accounts under the New Century Energies, Inc. Plans and the NSP 1992 Plan (the `Regular Deferred Compensation Account'), to this Plan and that the transferred benefits shall become part of and payable pursuant to the terms of this Plan. ( Id. ) It is clear from a review of all of the documentary evidence that there existed two separate NSP plans that were eventually merged together in 2002. NSP sponsored the NSP Deferred Compensation Plan beginning in 1980, which was restated in 1992. There is no dispute that each of the Appellants participated in the 1992 Restatement. In 2000, NSP created a new plan with a different titlethe NSP Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plan. There is no evidence that any of the Appellants participated in this new 2000 plan, which required that an individual be designated as eligible to participate by the plan committee and complete a Plan Enrollment Form before becoming a participant. ( Id. at 86, 2000 Statement § 2. 1.) The only record evidence addressing the Appellants' plan participation in 2000 reveals that they participated in the NSP Deferred Compensation Plan, referred to as the 1992 Restatement. Ultimately, the 2000 Statement was restated in 2003, made retroactive to January 1, 2002, and the 1992 Restatement was merged into that plan at that time. The Appellants were participants in the 1992 Restatement, which was merged into the 2002 Restatement. Although there may be a dispute about whether the 2002 Restatement could be applied to the Appellants because it did not come into existence until after their terminations, the 1992 Restatement and the 2002 Restatement both leave the Appellants in the same placewith no cause of action against Xcel. Appellants' argument that the broad definition of Employer in the 2002 Restatement includes Xcel ignores the qualifying language that payment be made by the Employer which last employed the Participant before payments commence.  ( Id. at 117, 2002 Restatement, § 5.9 (emphasis added); see also id. at 172, 1992 Restatement § 2 (using identical language).) There is no dispute that the Appellants were each last employed by NRG, a separate entity from Xcel, before payments were to commence. We understand the Appellants' frustration with Xcel's changing posture during this litigation, but the documents are clear on their face that Appellants were never participants of the 2000 Statement merely by being participants in the 1992 Restatement. The documents speak for themselves. It is also clear to us that both parties changed positions. Appellants did not rely on the 2000 Statement until discovery began in this litigation, originally asserting their claims under the 1992 Restatement and the 2002 Restatement, as attached to their district court complaint. Based upon the plain language of all of the plan documents, Xcel reasonably determined that the Appellants could seek deferred compensation benefits only from NRG.