Court Opinion

ID: 9471517
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:34:34.34446+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:26.979612
License: Public Domain

HARLINGTON WOOD, Jr., Circuit Judge,
concurring.
While I concur with the majority opinion, I respectfully must add a few points to round out what I believe is the correct approach to the right to trial by jury under Section 502(a)(3) of ERISA, 29 U.S.C. § 1132.
*1361I agree that ERISA § 502 was enacted to encourage the courts to grant equitable relief. This policy position was codified, however, with the qualification in § 502(a)(3) that the action seek “appropriate” equitable relief. The legislative history provides no indication that Congress intended to create a new form of equitable action that would be free from the conventional analysis which courts generally must perform to de-: termine whether equitable relief would be appropriate in a given case. Thus, before granting equitable relief under ERISA § 502(a)(3), a court first must determine that equitable relief is appropriate.
When union fund trustees have sued under § 502(a)(3)(A) to enjoin an employer from future violations of collective bargaining agreements, the courts have assessed irreparable harm, balance of hardships, and so forth, to determine whether an injunction should issue. See, e.g., Laborers Fringe Benefit Funds — Detroit Vicinity v. Northwest Concrete & Construction, Inc., 640 F.2d 1350 (6th Cir.1981); Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund v. Admiral Merchants Motor Freight, Inc., 511 F.Supp. 38 (D.Minn.1980), aff’d sub nom. Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund v. Jack Cole-Dixie Highway Co., 642 F.2d 1122 (8th Cir.1981); Operating Engineers Central Pension Fund v. Joski Construction Co., 441 F.Supp. 849, 850 (E.D.Wis.1977) (because Congress did not supply a different test, court applies the usual test before granting injunction). Likewise under § 502(a)(3)(B), the trial court must look beyond the fact that plaintiffs seek relief sounding in equity under an ERISA provision that expressly mandates equitable relief. As in any suit seeking specific performance, a grant of equitable relief is in the court’s sound discretion. Equitable relief is available only as a substitute when the legal remedy is inadequate or impracticable. Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U.S. 469, 478, 82 S.Ct. 894, 900, 8 L.Ed.2d 44 (1962); 4 S. Symons, Pomeroy’s Equity Jurisprudence § 1401 (5th ed. 1941). As the majority opinion notes, the necessary prerequisite of inadequacy of the legal remedy was not met in this case.
If equitable relief is appropriate in a particular case, a court must allow the plaintiff to proceed under ERISA § 502 with no right to trial by jury. If, however, a court finds equitable relief inappropriate, the plaintiff may not proceed under § 502. Frequently, as in the instant action, the plaintiff also sues under Labor-Management Relations Act (LMRA) § 301, 29 U.S.C. § 185. This provision in its express language provides a jurisdictional basis, and, under Textile Workers Union of America v. Lincoln Mills of Alabama, 353 U.S. 448, 456, 77 S.Ct. 912, 917, 1 L.Ed.2d 972 (1957), also provides a substantive basis for both legal and equitable claims under the federal labor common law. The right to a jury trial under LMRA § 301 is decided on a case-by-case basis depending upon the nature of the claim. Once having decided that the suit is not equitable for ERISA purposes, the same holds true under LMRA, and a right to jury trial exists.
This ERISA analysis does not conflict with our decision in Wardle v. Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund, 627 F.2d 820 (7th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1112, 101 S.Ct. 922, 66 L.Ed.2d 841 (1981). In Wardle the plaintiff styled his suit as one for damages, and the legal remedy would have been adequate under the circumstances. While we hold here that a suit under ERISA for specific performance is really a legal cause of action, in Wardle we held that an ERISA damage action was equitable and denied the plaintiff’s jury trial request.
Unlike the present case, Wardle involved an action under ERISA § 502(a)(1)(B) by a potential beneficiary of a trust fund against the trustees for refusal to pay pension benefits. We held that, in an ERISA action reviewing the trustees’ decision as to disbursements from the trust, the role of the federal courts is merely to determine whether the trustees’ action was arbitrary, capricious, or in bad faith. Id. at 824. Thus, ERISA maintains the limited judicial review of trustee actions that developed under the law of trusts, for both federal courts and state courts which have concurrent jurisdiction over § 502(a)(1)(B) claims, *1362see 29 U.S.C. § 1132(e)(1). Due to the trust nature of such suits and the limited judicial role, Wardle determined that congressional silence on the right to a jury trial under ERISA reflects an intention to continue the historical treatment of this type of suit in equity. Id. at 829.1
The instant case, in contrast, involves trustees suing an employer on his contractual obligations to the trust. No clear historical pattern of equitable treatment exists for this type of suit, which is not so permeated with the traditionally equitable nature of trusts as is a beneficiary’s suit against the trustees.2 Further, the judicial role in such cases is not limited to review of the trustees’ actions under the arbitrary and capricious standard, but is the same as in any contract action. That plaintiffs sued not for their own recovery but on behalf of the trust is not enough to make this suit equitable. In other contexts where a trustee sues a promisor on a contract with the trust, the existence of the trust as the direct promisee would not alone displace the otherwise standard contractual nature of the action. Cf. Ross v. Bernhard, 396 U.S. 531, 538, 90 S.Ct. 733, 738, 24 L.Ed.2d 729 (1970) (right to jury trial on legal claims in shareholder’s derivative action). Thus, while Wardle assumed that equitable actions may be brought under § 502(a)(3), our discussion of the inherently equitable nature of suits by beneficiaries against fiduciaries did not extend to suits by fiduciaries against employers, and we did not eliminate the prerequisite that suits under § 502(a)(3) be genuinely equitable.

. The Fifth and Eighth Circuits have followed Ward/e. See In re Vorpahl, 695 F.2d 318 (8th Cir.1982); Calamia v. Spivey, 632 F.2d 1235 (5th Cir.1980); accord Diano v. Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Health and Welfare and Pension Funds, 551 F.Supp. 861 (N.D.Ohio 1982). Another line of cases, however, has held that equitable relief is not available to participants and beneficiaries under ERI-SA § 502(a)(1)(B) because implying equitable relief under this subsection would be superfluous when it is expressly mandated under § 502(a)(3). See Pollock v. Castrovinci, 476 F.Supp. 606 (S.D.N.Y.1979), aff’d without opinion, 622 F.2d 575 (2d Cir.1980); Stamps v. Michigan Teamsters Joint Council No. 43, 431 F.Supp. 745 (E.D.Mich.1977).

. A survey of cases where trustee actions against employers under LMRA and ERISA went to trial reveals some bench trials, see, e.g., Audit Services, Inc. v. Rolfson, 641 F.2d 757, 760 (9th Cir.1981) (right to jury trial not raised); Calhoun v. Bernard, 333 F.2d 739, 740 (9th Cir.1964) (same); Central Pension Fund of the International Union of Operating Engineers and Participating Employers v. Bryant, No. 80-3175 (C.D.Ill. Dec. 31, 1980) (unpublished opinion) (denying defendant employer’s jury trial demand, relying on Judge Steckler’s order in the instant case), and some jury trials, see, e.g., Lewis v. Benedict Coal Corp., 361 U.S. 459, 462, 80 S.Ct. 489, 491, 4 L.Ed.2d 442 (1960); Lewis v. Kepple, 185 F.Supp. 884, 886 (W.D.Pa.1960), aff’d, 287 F.2d 409 (3d Cir.1961) (memorandum).