Opinion ID: 3011431
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Unisys and Plaintiff Snyder

Text: Unlike the other two remaining plaintiffs, the case of Donald Snyder is not controlled by Unisys because although he went on disability in 1983, he did not retire until 1999, more than four years after Freedom Forge began publishing booklets for retirees that included a strong reservation of rights. Snyder averred that in 1983 he was told that he and his wife would be taken care of for the rest of their lives. Unlike the other plaintiffs, who retired early, he produced no evidence of detrimental reliance on these misrepresentations. He presumably went on disability involuntarily and there is no evidence that he retired early. Since the lawyers for both sides were dealing with the plaintiffs collectively, the peculiar nature of his claim was not briefed. Although we do not foreclose the possibility that Snyder could adduce facts to state a claim for breach of fiduciary duty under ERISA, the facts before the District Court after the preliminary injunction hearing do not suffice to support a conclusion that he is reasonably likely to succeed on the merits. _________________________________________________________________ 19. Freedom Forge has asserted that, regardless of the strength of plaintiffs' Unisys argument, they are barred from pursuing any claim by ERISA's statute of limitations. This is a matter of considerable difficulty and implicates sophisticated questions about whether the statute begins to run at the date of the misrepresentations, the date of the plan amendment, or some other date, as well as the issues left unresolved in Kurz v. Philadelphia Elec. Co., 96 F.3d 1544 (3d Cir. 1996), about the anatomy and scope of the fraudulent concealment doctrine, see id. at 1552 n.5. The District Court concluded that the claims were not likely to be barred by the statute. However, Freedom Forge's counsel conceded at oral argument that the statute of limitation defense was not before the court of appeals as a substantive statute of limitations argument. As he noted, [t]his court will have opportunity in the next Unisys litigation to rule on whether or not that statute of limitations [argument] is substantively correct. Therefore, we do not reach these statute of limitations questions at this time. 30