Court Opinion

ID: 9493598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:12:48.760121+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:55.459110
License: Public Domain

FERNANDEZ, Circuit Judge,
Concurring and Dissenting:
While I agree that ERISA claims are arbitrable, I cannot agree that the plan administrator breached its fiduciary duties to Chappel.
No doubt a plan beneficiary has the right to know about the plan’s provisions for seeking review of the plan administrator’s decisions. But the mechanism that ERISA provides to assure that is the summary plan description (SPD). If that is clear, and if the administrator does nothing to prevent reliance upon it,1 I cannot see how a breach of fiduciary duty has taken place.
But we are, in effect, asked to decide that Congress passed a useless Act, at least from the standpoint of a fiduciary, when it required that a SPD must contain a description of “the remedies available under the plan for the redress of claims which are denied.” 29 U.S.C. § 1022(b); see also 29 U.S.C. §§ 1021, 1024(b). That, of course, is because the notice is now to be deemed inadequate, and will have to be retold to the beneficiary at what we deem to be the appropriate time. Just how many other parts of the SPD sections will be found to be similarly insufficient is now unknown. For example, if the plan administrator happens to hear that a person is ill, must the administrator seek the person out and inform him of “the procedures to be followed in presenting claims for benefits?” 29 U.S.C. 1022(b). Neither the employer, the employee, nor the administrator will know the answer until we, once again, take the measure of our judicial foot.
We, by inference, are also invited to ignore cases which have held that when the SPD explains the rules which will be applied byi the plan, ERISA does not additionally impose sua sponte individualized disclosure requirements. See Stahl v. *728Tony’s Bldg. Materials, Inc., 875 F.2d 1404, 1409 (9th Cir.1989); Schultz v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 872 F.2d 676, 680 (5th Cir.1989); Cummings v. Briggs & Stratton Retirement Plan, 797 F.2d 383, 387-88 (7th Cir.1986). I would decline that invitation.
Here, as in other cases,2 we are asked to create a duty through nothing more than judicial fiat or thaumaturgy. I would deny that request. Among other things, I see no need for it; I am not that cynical about the general competence of workers or about the general motives of plan administrators. Nor do I think that we should pile new burdens upon administrators. Of course, it is always easy for us to add steps to the minuet which administrators must perform if they are to avoid litigation and worse. Each step is just one step, and (as courts often like to suggest) a minor thing to require of the administrator — “a simple matter.” See maj. op. at 727. In the end, however, we are creating an exceedingly complex little dance. The result of a misstep in that dance may be an action against the administrator which will ultimately lead to an attempt to mulct him for his alleged wrongdoing. At the very least, it will tarnish the administrator, his methods and motives, and may well lead to an imposition of liability upon a plan that should be barred due to the beneficiary’s own inaction.
As I have written before, a major purpose of ERISA’s carefully tailored provisions was to encourage the creation of welfare benefit plans. See Kearney v. Standard Ins. Co., 175 F.3d 1084, 1102-03 (9th Cir.1999) (en banc) (Fernandez, J. dissenting). We, however, are in danger of becoming veritable Molochs for those who have the temerity to provide and administer benefit plans for America’s workers.
Thus, while I agree that the arbitration clause is valid and enforceable, I respectfully dissent from part III of the majority opinion.

. For example, an administrator might give bad information, or incomplete information, when asked. See Krohn v. Huron Memorial Hosp., 173 F.3d 542, 550 (6th Cir.1999).

. See, e.g., Bins v. Exxon Co., 220 F.3d 1042, 1053-54 (9th Cir.2000) (en banc) (rejecting just such an attempt).