Court Opinion

ID: 9473577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:33:24.627186+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:36.484218
License: Public Domain

FULLAM, District Judge,
concurring:
The jurisdictional issues which have engaged the attention of my colleagues — the extent to which “federal question” jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 may be predicated upon federal common law when the federal common law relied upon bears some relation to a federal statute which is interpreted as not authorizing suit in federal court — are interesting but, in my view, need not be addressed in this case. Mrs. Fazio is a participant in the ILGWU plan and a beneficiary of the Teamsters plan, and therefore, as my colleagues agree, had the right to sue both plans in federal court to recover benefits and to enforce compliance with ERISA. She did so. Each of the defendant plans had the right, in that action, to attempt to shift liability to the other, whether by way of contribution, indemnity, or declaratory judgment. In short, there plainly was federal jurisdiction over all aspects of the controversy, under *167the express jurisdictional grant of 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B).
The question is whether the procedures chosen by the district court to resolve the controversy deprived that court of federal jurisdiction. Plainly, neither the district court nor any of the litigants intended to achieve that result, or thought they had done so. Plainly, too, if the action had proceeded as on cross-claims by the two defendants in the Fazio lawsuit, federal jurisdiction would have persisted. In my view, it is appropriate to regard the matter as if that is precisely what did occur. Cf. 28 U.S.C. § 1653. The reality is that everyone intended that the ILGWU plan be sub-rogated to Mrs. Fazio’s rights against the Teamsters’ plan. I do not believe this Court should be deterred from deciding the important federal issues presented in this litigation by the procedural formalities unfortunately, and inadvertently, pursued in the district court. This Court should not be so tyrannized by district court docket numbers.
I respectfully suggest that there is a live, justiciable, controversy in this case only because of Mrs. Fazio’s claims against the Teamsters fund. I do not believe a labor union, such as ILGWU, or the trustee of its plan, would have standing to seek a judgment declaring that some other pension plan was violating ERISA, unless such plaintiffs could demonstrate a particularized, concrete, financial impact upon the plaintiff plan. It is only because the ILG-WU claimants are attempting to recoup from the Teamsters plan the amounts paid to Mrs. Fazio that there is a justiciable controversy in this case. Where the entitlements of an identifiable beneficiary are at issue, the federal courts are open to litigation under 28 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B), I suggest, regardless of whether the action is maintained in the name of the beneficiary, or in the name of a personal representative, assignee or subrogee.