Opinion ID: 505517
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Independent Standing

Text: 4 Section 502 of ERISA, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 1132(a) (1976), provides that a civil action may be brought under ERISA by a plan participant, beneficiary, or fiduciary, or by the Secretary of Labor. 2 That provision, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 1132(e)(1), also confers exclusive jurisdiction on federal courts to hear these actions. Hermann does not contend that it falls among the parties statutorily authorized by Sec. 1132(a). Whether standing to sue under ERISA is exclusive to these three types of parties has been the subject of much debate, 3 and the federal appeals courts, as well as the parties to this case, differ on the issue. 5 The Ninth Circuit has held that certain non-enumerated parties have standing to sue 4 based on a three-part test for determining implied statutory authority to sue. 5 Fentron Industries v. National Shopmen Pension Fund, 674 F.2d 1300, 1304 (9th Cir.1982). In that case, an employer whose employees were covered by an ERISA plan was held a non-enumerated party with standing to sue for a union pension fund's cancellation of certain benefits to the company's employees. Courts agreeing with Fentron reason that the correct inquiry in defining standing under a federal statute is not whether the national legislature affirmatively intended to bar suits by ... [parties] not specifically identified in Sec. 1132[a]'s laundry list, but whether Congress affirmatively intended that unnamed others should be permitted access to the federal forum. Intern. Union of Bricklayers v. Menard & Co., 619 F.Supp. 1457, 1460 (D.R.I.1985). See also Airco Industrial Gases v. Teamsters Health and Welfare Pension Fund, 618 F.Supp. 943 (D.Del.1985). 6 The Second Circuit has rejected the non-enumerated party standing concept. Pressroom Unions Printers League Income Security Fund v. Continental Assurance Co., 700 F.2d 889 (2d Cir.1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 845, 104 S.Ct. 148, 78 L.Ed.2d 138 (1983). 6 The court criticized Fentron's analysis: 7 In our view, the Fentron court applied an inappropriate standard in resolving this issue. We focus not on whether the legislative history reveals that Congress intended to prevent actions by employers or other parties, but instead on whether there is any indication that the legislature intended to grant subject matter jurisdiction over suits by employers, funds, or other parties not listed in Sec. 1132(e)(1). 700 F.2d at 892. 8 The court's decision was founded on the jurisdictional principle stated by the Supreme Court in Rice v. Railroad Co., 66 U.S. (1 Black) 358, 374, 17 L.Ed. 147 (1861), and affirmed in later decisions 7 , that only Congress is empowered to grant and extend subject matter jurisdiction of the federal judiciary, and ... courts are not to infer a grant of jurisdiction absent clear legislative mandate. Pressroom, 700 F.2d at 888. Applying this rule, the silence of ERISA's legislative history 8 concerning the scope of Secs. 1132(a) and (e)(1) indicates that it should be considered an exclusive jurisdictional grant. 9 9 We may prefer the reasoning of the Second Circuit without endorsing the particular result it reached. 10 Where Congress has defined the parties who may bring a civil action founded on ERISA, we are loathe to ignore the legislature's specificity. Moreover, our previous decisions have hewed to a literal construction of Sec. 1132(a). In Yancy v. American Petrofina, Inc., 768 F.2d 707, 708 (5th Cir.1985), this court refused to allow the plaintiff to bring an ERISA action after determining that he was not a plan participant within the meaning accorded that term by the statute. See also Joseph v. New Orleans Elec. Pension, 754 F.2d 628 (5th Cir.1985) (retirees who had chosen to receive lump-sum retirement benefits in lieu of a continuing monthly benefit found not participants within meaning of ERISA and thus lacked standing to sue); Jackson v. Sears Roebuck & Co., 648 F.2d 225 (5th Cir.1981); Nugent v. Jesuit High School of New Orleans, 625 F.2d 1285 (5th Cir.1980) (former employee lacked standing because his benefits were not vested at the time of his termination, and he therefore could not be characterized as a participant). 11 Although our evaluation of the ERISA standing issues in these cases was limited to determining whether the plaintiffs fit into an enumerated class of litigants under Sec. 1132(a), the analysis is consistent with rejection of Fentron's implied statutory standing concept. We therefore conclude that Hermann Hospital has no standing as a non-enumerated party to pursue an action described in Sec. 1132(a).