Court Opinion

ID: 9627281
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:41:31.547879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:36:26.965095
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
It is somewhat doubtful whether Congress’s intent as to the legitimate purposes of withdrawal liability under the Multiem-ployer Pension Plan Amendments Act is being properly served here. The majority correctly states that a “trade or business,” as defined in Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Groetzinger, requires as its “primary purpose” the realization of “income or profit.” 480 U.S. 23, 35, 107 S.Ct. 980, 94 L.Ed.2d 25 (1987). There is no dear error in the district court’s conclusion that Pioneer Ranch was primarily intended to make a profit, but the continued existence of the “ranch” in the face of relentless losses suggests otherwise, its founding agreement and tax filings notwithstanding. A reasonable jury could conclude that Pioneer Ranch was a vacation home enhanced by a few livestock and inflated to the status of a “ranch” for tax purposes.
As the majority notes, this makes the case turn on whether Pioneer Ranch is entitled to a jury trial on the fund’s claim for withdrawal liability. (Op. at 575-77.) The centrality of this issue entitles it to a degree of rigorous attention to which nei*579ther the majority nor, it should be noted, the parties have subjected it. (Although Central States has asserted that Pioneer Ranch is not entitled to a jury trial, and Pioneer Ranch has asserted the contrary, neither has done much to explain why such a right should or should not exist.)
The majority concludes that Pioneer Ranch is not entitled to a jury because it “avoided the dispute resolution scheipe that Congress contemplated in the statute,” that is, private arbitration described in 29 U.S.C. § 1401(a)(1). ' (Op. at 577.) But, whatever it would mean for Congress to “contemplate” arbitration, this court has determined that Congress has not always required, that every issue in a dispute between a fund and an employer be arbitrated. In Central States, Se. & Sw. Areas Pension Fund v. Slotky, we held that “the issue of membership in a controlled group,” the very issue that Pioneer Ranch disputes in this case, “cannot be within exclusive arbitral jurisdiction. For then people who had absolutely no reason to believe that they might be deemed members of a controlled group would be, foreclosed from litigating the issue in any forum.” 956 F.2d 1369, 1373 (7th Cir.1992). We suggested that some defendants might still be required to arbitrate the issue, for instance “if the pension plan explicitly notifies the person of his potential liability,” dispelling any notice concerns, but the issue is sometimes properly decided, by courts in the first instance. Id.; cf. Central States, Se. & Sw. Pension Fund v. Personnel, Inc., 974 F.2d 789, 792 n. 1 (7th Cir.1992) (suggesting that a defendant is never required to arbitrate employer status).
If Pioneer Ranch has not evaded any eongressionally-required arbitration, it is not clear why its failure to pursue arbitration barred it from jury trial; Pioneer Ranch could have plausibly argued that it has a Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial in the federal courts,- and the availability of a jury trial often depends on-the litigants’ choice of the forum in which their dispute will be resolved. See, e.g., Langenkamp v. Culp, 498 U.S. 42, 44-45, 111 S.Ct. 330, 112 L.Ed.2d 343 (1990) (per curiam); Statland v. United States, 178 F.3d 465, 472-73 (7th Cir.1999). When Congress “provides for enforcement of statutory rights in an ordinary civil action in the district courts,” the Seventh Amendment-applies and “a jury trial must be available if the action involves rights and remedies of the sort typically enforced in an action at law.” Curtis v. Loether, 415 U.S. 189, 195, 94 S.Ct. 1005, 39 L.Ed.2d 260 (1974); cf. Granfinanciera, S.A v. Nordberg, 492 U.S. 33, 52-53, 109 S.Ct. 2782, 106 L.Ed.2d 26 (1989) (explaining that the Seventh Amendment does not apply to disputes that Congress assigns “to a forum in which jury trials are unavailable”). While it ,may not be entirely clear whether an action for MPPAA withdrawal liability involves such rights and remedies, it is certainly a respectable candidate for them. Money damages are a typically legal remedy, and we have previously held that the Seventh Amendment provides a jury right when a union trust fund seeks contractually required contributions from an employer. See Bugher v. Feightner, 722 F.2d 1356, 1357-60 (7th Cir.1983).
This is not to say that the majority’s reasoning is incorrect. It might be that Central States’ suit is not an “ordinary civil action,” even though it is heard in the district courts, Curtis, 415 U.S. at 195, 94 S.Ct. 1005 (emphasis added), or it might be that the Seventh Amendment does not ensure a jury trial even if it applies. But I think the issue remains somewhat obscure and need not be resolved in the present case. Pioneer Ranch seems to have forfeited the jury trial issue on appeal by failing to support it with any sort of cita*580tion to authority or argument. Central States, Se. & Sw. Areas Pension Fund v. Schilli Corp., 420 F.3d 663, 670 (7th Cir.2005); Pelfresne v. Village of Williams Bay, 917 F.2d 1017, 1023 (7th Cir.1990). (The Fund has done almost as little to explain its assertion that Pioneer Ranch had no right to a jury trial, but it has at least cited to Central States, Se. & Sw. Pension Fund v. Personnel, Inc., which by omitting any discussion of the jury issue from its determination of the standard of review arguably suggests that a jury right does not exist. 974 F.2d 789, 792 (7th Cir.1992).) Even if it had not waived the issue on appeal, Central States “explicitly notifie[d] [Pioneer Ranch] of [its] potential liability” under the MPPAA, which suggests that it might have been required to arbitrate its control group membership. Central States, Se. & Sw. Areas Pension Fund v. Slotky, 956 F.2d 1369, 1373 (7th Cir.1992). If so, the majority is correct and it has no right to a jury trial.
I would therefore not reach the general issue of whether there is a right to a jury trial in lawsuits to recover MPPAA withdrawal liability under 29 U.S.C. § 1401(b)(1). I otherwise agree with the majority opinion.