Opinion ID: 698718
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Alternative Health Plan

Text: 26 Lowe's makes one argument concerning the health Plan only. It points out that it began providing alternative health insurance coverage to its employees in January of 1992, after it ceased making contributions to the union's multiemployer health Plan. Lowe's argues that it would be unfair to require it to make retroactive contributions to the union multiemployer health plan after that date. The effect of the judgments below were to require contributions from the date that Lowe's stopped making payments to the health Plan to the date of the ALJ's decision in February of 1993. 27 We believe that the essential purpose of section 515 would be far too easily circumvented if an employer could unilaterally stop making contributions to an employee benefit plan as required by the CBA and the plan documents, and defend such action on grounds that it provided some form of substitute coverage for its own employees. For example, Benson teaches that benefit plans must be able to rely on the contribution promises of employers because plans must pay out to beneficiaries whether or not employers live up to their obligations. 907 F.2d at 314. And Gerber Truck explains that [p]lans rely on documents to determine the income they can expect to receive.... Once they promise a level of benefits to employees, they must pay even if the contributions they expected to receive do not materialize--perhaps because employers go broke, perhaps because they are deadbeats, perhaps because they have a defense to the formation of the contract. If some employers do not pay, others must make up the difference in higher contributions, or the workers will receive less than was promised. 870 F.2d at 1151. 28 The situation might be different if the health Plan was derelict in its own obligations to provide benefits as required by the Plan documents, or otherwise failed to comply with ERISA. For example, in Agathos, the court found that the record suggested that [the employer's] unreported employees failed to collect benefits not because they lacked meritorious claims or because they were dilatory in submitting their claims, but because the Funds persistently violated their 'watchdog' duties under ERISA to identify the employees and inform them of their participation in the plans. This circumstance militates against unconditionally requiring [the employer] to make contributions to the Funds. 977 F.2d at 1507. Lowe's, however, offered no summary judgment evidence that the health Plan failed in its own obligations to Lowe's employees. 29 AFFIRMED.