Court Opinion

ID: 9473899
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:43:02.141428+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:48.106293
License: Public Domain

ENGEL, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur fully in the majority’s finding that the disability benefit portion of the S & T Industries Master Hour Retirement Plan is an employee welfare benefit plan and, therefore, not subject to ERISA’s anti-forfeiture provisions. As I believe that the language of section 4.06 of the plan is ambiguous in the context of the facts in this case, I also agree that the case should be remanded for a determination of the parties’ intent. However, I disagree with the majority’s discussion of the parties’ probable intent.
I would first look to the four corners of the plan to construe the questioned language. Section 4.06, when read in its entirety, basically gives permanently and totally disabled plan participants with at least ten years of service the right to receive disability benefits equal to the retirement benefits which they have accrued at the date of disablement. However, under section 4.06(b), “[i]f a Member is entitled to disability benefits from another Employer-*101sponsored program or from Workmen’s Compensation, he shall not be entitled to benefits from this Plan unless and until benefits from such other program cease.”
The majority suggests that under section 4.06(b), the disability fund was intended only for employees whose disability is work-related. Yet, if section 4.06(b) of appellants’ plan is construed to allow disability benefits only when injuries are work-related, the disability portion of the plan would be of little benefit to any employees. Workers with non-work-related injuries would be barred from an award under the plan because their disability was not employment-related, and workers with employment-related injuries would be barred under section 4.06(b) because they are entitled to worker’s compensation. A more reasonable construction of the plan would be that it was intended to protect long-term employees who suffered either an employment-related or a non-employment-related total, permanent disability. Under that construction, if the employees’ injury were work-related, he would receive worker’s compensation; if not, he would receive benefits under the plan. I, therefore, disagree with the majority’s position on this issue and conclude that the disability benefit portion of the fund was primarily intended to assist employees whose disabling injuries are not work-related.
Proceeding on that basis, I believe that section 4.06(b) was included in the plan only to prohibit double-dipping by totally disabled employees with entirely work-related injuries; that is, it was designed to prevent such employees from claiming an entitlement to full benefits under both the plan and worker’s compensation. I find it unlikely that in drafting section 4.06(b) the parties contemplated the specific situation at issue here. However, if they had considered this circumstance in which the participant’s disability is only partially work-related, it seems improbable that they would have placed such an employee in a totally inferior position, making him unable to enjoy the benefits which he would have received had his disability been either entirely work-related or entirely non-work-related.
Therefore, I would construe section 4.06(b) as providing that where, as here, an employee is entitled to worker’s compensation only to the extent that his disability was employment-related (here five percent) and where that employee did not receive the remaining worker’s compensation to which he would be otherwise entitled (here ninety-five percent), he is only “entitled” to the five percent of worker’s compensation he received. Therefore, he should be disqualified under the plan only to the extent of that five percent and should receive ninety-five percent of the plan’s normal disability benefits. This construction would accord with the plan’s obvious intent as suggested by the use of the word “entitled” in section 4.06(b), but would avoid the double-dipping which the parties wished to prohibit.
Yet, if the proof shows that the parties intended to disallow all disability benefits otherwise payable under the plan when a qualified plan member is entitled to any worker’s compensation benefits, we must enforce that intent. As the majority points out, the stability of a plan which was funded to pay disability benefits only when a participant is entitled to no worker’s compensation would be endangered by a decision requiring such unanticipated payments. We must consider any “threat to the stability of a pension plan itself by the impact of [such a] decision upon the integrity of the fund and its capability of providing real benefits to the workers.” Utility Workers, Etc. v. Consumers Power Co., 637 F.2d 1082, 1093 (6th Cir.) (Engel, J., dissenting), vacated and remanded, 451 U.S. 1014, 101 S.Ct. 3000, 69 L.Ed.2d 385 (1981). On remand, the district court should, therefore, consider and enforce the parties’ intent.