Opinion ID: 1311193
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Decision of the Board of Trustees to Suspend Brown's Early Retirement Benefits.

Text: The Board of Trustees erred under either an abuse of discretion or a de novo standard of review. See McDaniel v. Chevron Corp., 203 F.3d 1099, 1113 (9th Cir. 2000) (A plan administrator's decision to deny benefits must be upheld under the abuse of discretion standard if it is based upon a reasonable interpretation of the plan's terms and if it was made in good faith.) (citing Bendixen v. Standard Ins. Co., 185 F.3d 939, 944 (9th Cir. 1999)); Sznewajs v. U.S. Bancorp Amended and Restated Supplemental Benefits Plan, 572 F.3d 727, 733 (9th Cir. 2009) (explaining that under a de novo standard, the court should grant no deference to the plan's decision). The Board of Trustees's interpretation of the terms of the Plan was contrary to the Plan's plain language. The district court correctly found that Brown's employment with Siemens was not employment as an electrical contractor constituting suspendible employment under the Plan. Section 9.8(c)(1) of the Plan states that [t]o be considered retired prior to his Normal Retirement Date a Pensioner must refrain from any of the following activities and lists five subparagraphs of prohibited activities. The specific subparagraph of 9.8(c)(1) at issue prohibits a pensioner from engaging in: (iv) employment as an electrical contractor, including, but not limited to, bidding jobs, performing electrical construction work, hiring employees, leasing buildings or equipment in the name of the electrical company or soliciting work[.] The plain language of section 9.8(c)(1)(iv) prohibits an early retirement benefits recipient from working as an electrical contractor, and then lists a number of tasks generally performed by electrical contractors, one of which is electrical construction work. But that is not to say that performance of any task included in the list automatically qualifies the person performing the task as an electrical contractor. For example, electrical contractors may hire employees, but not every person who hires employees is an electrical contractor. Similarly, electrical contractors may perform electrical construction work, but not every person performing electrical construction work is an electrical contractor. [3] In conflating electrical construction work with employment as an electrical contractor, the Board of Trustees ran afoul of our holding that each provision in an agreement should be construed consistently with the entire document such that no provision is rendered nugatory. Richardson v. Pension Plan of Bethlehem Steel Corp., 112 F.3d 982, 985 (9th Cir. 1997) (citing Armistead v. Vernitron Corp., 944 F.2d 1287, 1293 (6th Cir. 1991)). As the facts of this case demonstrate, Brown is not an electrical contractor  Siemens is the electrical contractor, while Brown is a regular employee of that company who performs electrical construction work. [4] The Board of Trustees's interpretation of the Plan creates a much broader category of prohibited activities than is supported by the plain language of the Plan. See Canseco v. Constr. Laborers Pension Trust for S. Cal., 93 F.3d 600, 608 (9th Cir. 1996) (stating it is an abuse of discretion for plan trustees to `impose a standard [of eligibility for pension plan benefits] not required by the pension plan itself' ) (quoting Morgan v. Mullins, 643 F.2d 1320, 1321 (8th Cir. 1981)) (alteration in original). The Board of Trustees erred when it suspended Brown's early retirement benefits because of his performance of electrical construction work. That work did not violate section 9.8(c)(1)(iv)'s prohibition on employment as an electrical contractor. Brown was employed by Siemens to install HVAC equipment. His relationship with Siemens is that of an employee, not as an independent electrical contractor.