Court Opinion

ID: 9471821
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:41:53.080345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:35.693069
License: Public Domain

GARTH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The district court in this case resolved the controversy at issue by reaching and deciding a question never raised by Mrs. Wolf before the Pension Fund Trustees. By so doing, it usurped the Trustees’ right to interpret the pension plan in the first instance. Unfortunately, the majority here has endorsed that same approach. Thus, to this date the Trustees of the Fund have yet to consider or have presented to them the very issue of waiver that has now been deemed dispositive of Mrs. Wolf’s claims.
Had Mrs. Wolf claimed before the Trustees that the waiver of the 50% husband-wife option was inoperative under the terms and regulations of the Pension Plan due to her husband’s status as an active (as distinct from retired) employee at the time of his death, and had that interpretation of the Plan been available for consideration and attention by the Trustees, we might have a very different case before us.
Of even greater importance is that by condoning a relaxation of internal exhaustion requirements, and by permitting a claimant such as Mrs. Wolf to bypass procedures designed to avoid dispute resolution in the courtroom, we will be encouraging other claimants in similar contexts to do the same. In an era when we are desperately seeking out alternative forms of resolving disputes, it appears unwise and improvident to me to ignore the very mechanism for resolving the dispute in this case expressly provided for by this agreement. For this reason, I respectfully dissent.
I
The facts of this case are not disputed. Mr. Wolf executed his application for disability pension benefits on July 11, 1978, and it was filed thereafter by Mr. Richard Gehringer, President of the Local Union. The Pension Fund office received Wolf’s application for a disability pension on June 14, 1978. That office responded to Wolf that same day, acknowledging receipt of his application and requesting that Wolf obtain and forward the required verification of his disability status from the Social Security Administration.
On September 12, 1978, the Pension Fund received a letter from Mr. Gehringer, the Union President, enclosing the requested Social Security Award Certificate. Two days later, the Fund Administrator wrote to Mr. Wolf to acknowledge receipt of the award certificate in connection with his application for his disability pension. On December 1, 1978, the Fund Administrator notified Mr. Wolf by letter that his application had been approved effective August 1, 1978. However, Mr. Wolf had died on No*190vember 22, 1978. Payments were made for the months of August through November, 1978 only, since Mr. Wolf had elected to waive the spouse 50% option provision1 and the Plan did not otherwise provide for the payment to the surviving spouse of any disability benefits upon the pensioner’s death.
Mrs. Wolf brought suit in the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas in 1979. She alleged that her husband had intended to select an early retirement pension (with a guaranteed 60-month option), but Mr. Geh-ringer, the Union President, had negligently completed her husband’s pension application. His negligence, she charged, was in applying for a disability pension and in waiving the spouse 50% option. That court action was removed by the defendants to the district court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where the district court judge granted summary judgment for the defendants on the ground that Mrs. Wolf had failed to exhaust the fund’s internal appeals procedure and the internal union remedies also available to her.2 See Wolf v. National Shopmen Pension Fund, 512 F.Supp. 1182, 1183-84 (E.D.Pa.1981).
Mrs. Wolf thereafter filed an appeal with the Trustees of the Fund. Although the requisite 180-day filing period for appeals had expired, the Trustees nevertheless agreed to consider her appeal on the merits. Mrs. Wolf repeated the same argument she had made before the district court — that Mr. Gehringer had made an error in completing the form for Mr. Wolf — and she made no other arguments. The Trustees denied her appeal based on their finding that “Mr. Wolf made a deliberate and calculated decision to apply for a Disability pension and to waive the husband-wife pension option.” App.l4a.
On June 23, 1982, Mrs. Wolf commenced this action against the defendants, again arguing that Mr. Gehringer’s error had thwarted her husband’s intended pension selection. The district court denied defendants’ motion for summary judgment without opinion, and the matter was submitted to arbitration according to local court rules. An arbitration award entered on November 22, 1982, found for Mrs. Wolf against the Pension Fund, and for the Local Union and Mr. Gehringer against Mrs. Wolf. Both Mrs. Wolf and the Fund appealed. On December 22, 1982, the district court entered judgment in accordance with the arbitration award: the district court issued an Opinion and Order entering judgment for Mrs. Wolf against the Fund, and in favor of the Local Union and Mr. Gehringer against Mrs. Wolf. The district court found that Mr. Gehringer was not negligent with regard to filing the pension application (App. 71a), thereby rejecting Mrs. Wolf’s main claim. However, the court went on to consider an alternative theory first raised by Mrs. Wolf before the arbitrators, that under the terms of the Plan, Mr. Wolf’s purported waiver of the 50% husband-wife option was ineffective. The court concluded, “after a careful review of the Rules and Regulations of the Fund and the other evidence in this case that the waiver was not operative and the plaintiff is entitled to a recovery albeit reduced.” (App. 74a).
II
The Pension Plan provides that “[a] pension must be applied for in writing filed with the Trustees in advance of its effective date.” Section 7.01; App. 43a. The Plan further provides that
[a] Participant whose application for benefits under this Plan has been denied, in whole or in part, is to be provided with adequate notice in writing setting forth the specific reasons for such denial, and shall have the right to appeal the decision, by written request filed with the *191Trustees within 180 days after receipt of such notice. The appeal shall be considered and decided by the Trustees. The decision shall be communicated to the claimant within 90 days after receipt of all pertinent evidence. [Emphasis added]
Section 7.04; App. 44a. Thus, the Plan itself clearly provides an internal procedure for handling appeals of denials of pension benefits in the first instance. The case law with regard to such appeals is clear: where a pension fund provides an appeals procedure in the event of a dispute concerning a participant’s pension rights, that internal procedure must be exhausted by an aggrieved participant before an action is instituted against the fund for an improper denial of pension benefits. Wolf v. National Shopmen Pension Fund, 512 F.Supp. 1182,1183-84 (E.D.Pa.1981). See also Challenger v. Local 1, Int’l Bridge, Structural & Ornamental Iron Workers, 619 F.2d 645, 647 (7th Cir.1980); Amato v. Bernard, 618 F.2d 559, 566-68 (9th Cir.1980); Scheider v. U.S. Steel Corp., 486 F.Supp. 211, 212-13 (W.D. Pa.1980); Lucas v. Warner & Swasey Co., 475 F.Supp. 1071, 1074-75 (E.D.Pa.1979). Cf. United Steelworkers of America v. American Smelting & Refining Co., 648 F.2d 863, 870 (3d Cir.1981) (failure of losing party to raise issue before labor arbitrator precludes that party from raising such issue in a subsequent proceeding to vacate the arbitrator’s award).
In this ease, Mrs. Wolf never raised to the Trustees any argument based on interpretation of the Plan itself, yet it is the Trustees who are charged with interpreting and administering that Plan. Therefore, although Mrs. Wolf technically availed herself of existing internal appeals procedures as to her negligence claim, she did not properly exhaust her remedies as to her waiver claim. Her failure to present a crucial, substantive argument (the waiver issue) to the Trustees, who constitute the appropriate administrative body charged with interpreting the disputed agreement in the first instance is, in my opinion, fatal to her appeal here.
Thus, I would reverse the district court’s judgment and remand so that the Pension Fund Trustees could deal with the “waiver” issue in the first instance. By doing so, I find it unnecessary to address the district court’s interpretation of the Plan, which Plan, in my view, is subject to initial interpretation by the Pension Fund, with deference given to that interpretation by us. However, the majority having undertaken this task, I should point out that the conclusion that the majority reaches is by no means certain or even probable. I note, for instance, that section 3.08 of the Plan provides that “[a] Participant who is permanently and totally disabled shall be entitled to retire on a Disability Pension ” if certain conditions — not at issue here — are satisfied (emphasis added). This language, contrary to the majority’s construction, see Maj.Op. at 16, leads to the conclusion that a disability claimant is indeed a retired claimant. The strained effort of the majority to read the Plan otherwise finds little support in either this section or in sections 5.03(b)3 or 7.05(a)4, upon which the Trustees have relied.
As stated previously, however, I would not reach the merits of Mrs. Wolf’s waiver argument at this time for the simple reason that she has failed to exhaust existing and available internal appeals remedies as provided for by the very Plan giving rise to this dispute. On this basis alone I would reverse the district court’s judgment and remand. I therefore respectfully dissent.

. The waiver of the 50% spouse option resulted in a greater disability pension during Wolfs lifetime than would have been paid had the spousal option been selected.

. Some of the procedures available to Mrs. Wolf were to proceed under Section 7.04 of the Pension Plan or under Article XIX or Article XXI of the Constitution of the International Union. See Wolf v. National Shopmen Pension Fund, 512 F.Supp. 1182, 1183 (E.D.Pa.1981).

. Section 5.03(b) states: “A Participant may reject the Husband-and-Wife Pension (or revoke a previous rejection) at any time before the Effective Date of his pension.”

. Section 7.05(a) states:
A Participant who is eligible to receive benefits under this Plan and makes application in accordance with the rules of this Pension Plan shall be entitled upon retirement to receive monthly benefits, subject to the provisions of this Plan. Benefit payments shall be payable commencing with the first day of the month following the month in which the Participant has fulfilled all the conditions for entitlement to benefits, including the filing of an application. Such first day is what is meant by the “Effective Date” of the Participant’s pension.