Court Opinion

ID: 9494875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:48:59.867925+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:39.755095
License: Public Domain

BYE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree the district court erred by concluding the collapse of Granite caused no *910loss to the Plan. I also agree with the court’s resolution of the prohibited transaction claim. But I disagree the plaintiffs lack standing to bring breach of fiduciary-duty claims under 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(2).
The court sidesteps the question whether, consistent with Article III, plan participants or beneficiaries may bring claims under § 1132(a)(2) for injuries suffered only by the Plan, reasoning that such a construction “would raise serious Article III case or controversy concerns.” Ante at 906. But we do not have the luxury of avoiding that construction. Section 1132(a)(2) only permits participants or beneficiaries to bring suit in a representative capacity to remedy an injury to the Plan itself. Mass. Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Russell, 473 U.S. 134, 142 n. 9, 144, 105 S.Ct. 3085, 87 L.Ed.2d 96 (1985); see also Physicians HealthChoice, Inc. v. Trs. of Auto. Employee Benefit Trust, 988 F.2d 53, 55 (8th Cir.1993). Thus, we have no choice but to address the Article III question head-on.
I believe the plaintiffs have standing. They satisfy the case-or-controversy requirements of Article III by standing in the shoes of a party that clearly has standing — the Plan itself. In Vt. Agency of Natural Res. v. United States ex. rel Stevens, the Supreme Court held a qui tam relator had Article III standing to sue under the False Claims Act because the United States had partially assigned its claim to the relator. 529 U.S. 765, 773, 120 S.Ct. 1858, 146 L.Ed.2d 836 (2000). But the Supreme Court also suggested a person has standing to bring an action on behalf of a complaining party, so long as the person has no individual interest in the case, and is “simply the statutorily designated agent of the [complaining party].” Id. at 772,120 S.Ct. 1858. The latter point proves instructive in this case because § 1132(a)(2) authorizes plan participants and beneficiaries to bring claims on behalf of the Plan (the complaining party), but not on their own behalf. See Russell, supra. Therefore, under Stevens, I believe the plaintiffs may bring suit under § 1132(a)(2) because the Plan’s injuries suffice to confer Article III standing.
I do not find the court’s rebanee on the “zone of interests” test particularly helpful in deciding whether the plaintiffs have standing. The Plan beneficiaries are certainly not strangers to the Plan, ante at 906, and § 1132(a)(2) authorizes them to represent the Plan irrespective of whether the fiduciary breach affects a defined benefit plan or a defined contribution plan. The zone of interests test presents a question of “statutory standing,” Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 97, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998) (emphasis in original), with prudential standing requirements satisfied “when the injury asserted by a plaintiff arguably falls within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by the statute in question.” Fed. Election Comm’n v. Akins, 524 U.S. 11, 20, 118 S.Ct. 1777, 141 L.Ed.2d 10 (1998) (internal punctuation and quotation omitted) (emphasis added). Here, the Plan’s injuries are at issue, and the plaintiffs’ suit certainly satisfies the “statutory” zone of interests tests when the statute itself authorizes plan beneficiaries to act for the Plan in a representative capacity.
I respectfully dissent in part.