Opinion ID: 172426
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: District Court's Grant of Summary JudgmentCount Four

Text: In Count Four of their second amended complaint, plaintiffs sought, in pertinent part, an order requiring [defendants] to correct the ... faulty language in the ... SPD and issue a corrected SPD with language disclosing the Pension[er] Death Benefit [wa]s a vested, protected or accrued defined pension benefit, not subject to reduction or elimination absent a PLAN termination. App. at 66-67. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants with respect to Count Four on the grounds that it was redundant of Claims One and Two. Id. at 1219. Plaintiffs now argue in their fifth and final argument on appeal that, should they prevail with either of their claims within Counts I-III that the [Pensioner Death Benefit] became vested or a protected benefit or that ... Amendment 2003-5 illegally either cutback a retirement-type subsidy or an early retirement benefit, then the summary judgment order also dismissing Count [Four] should be reversed. Aplt. Br. at 55. In addition, plaintiffs assert that their motion for class certification which was dismissed as moot will need to be revisited. Id. For the reasons outlined above, we conclude the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of defendants with respect to the claims asserted in Counts One through Three of the plaintiffs' second amended complaint. Thus, there is no need to reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment with respect to Count Four, nor is there a need to revisit its dismissal of plaintiffs' motion for class certification. The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. McCONNELL, J., concurring. I respectfully concur in the result and join the majority's opinion in full, with the exception of its conclusion that a lump-sum benefit can never constitute a retirement-type subsidy under ERISA. See Op. 18-21 (relying on Steiner Corp. Retirement Plan v. Johnson & Higgins of Cal., 31 F.3d 935 (10th Cir.1994)). The court finds that Steiner Corp. remains good law, notwithstanding a subsequent regulation adopted by the Treasury Department defining a retirement-type subsidy simply as the excess, if any, of the actuarial present value of a retirement-type benefit over the actuarial present value of the accrued benefit commencing at normal retirement age or at actual commencement date, if later.... 26 C.F.R. § 1.411(d)-3(g)(6)(iv). Because I think the Treasury Department's regulation puts into question the continuing validity of Steiner Corp., I would not resolve the question of whether the PDB-Equivalent constitutes a retirement-type subsidy on this ground. Instead, I would find that the PDB-Equivalent cannot be a retirement-type subsidy for the simple reason that a death benefit is a welfare benefit rather than a retirement benefit, regardless of its mechanism of distribution. See 29 U.S.C. § 1002(1)(A) (listing death benefits as an aspect of a welfare plan rather than a pension plan); In re Lucent Death Benefits ERISA Litigation, 541 F.3d 250, 255-56 (finding pensioner death benefit to be a welfare benefit); Ross v. Pension Plan for Hourly Employees of SKF Industries, Inc., 847 F.2d 329, 333-34 (6th Cir.1988) (quoting S.Rep. No. 575, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 30, reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin. News 2547, 2576) (The committee expects, however, that ... a death benefit ... will not be considered a retirement-type subsidy). ERISA's anti-cutback provision does not apply to welfare benefits. 29 U.S.C. § 1051(1); see Robinson v. Sheet Metal Workers' National Pension Fund, Plan A, 515 F.3d 93, 98 (2d Cir.2008). Because a death benefit is a welfare benefit, it does not matter whether it is paid in installments or as a lump sum; either way, it is not subject to ERISA's anti-cutback requirement. In all other respects, I agree with the majority.