Court Opinion

ID: 9560913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:59:04.748379+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:20.013379
License: Public Domain

VINSON, District Judge,
dissenting.
I believe the record fully supports summary judgment for the defendants, and I would affirm on the basis of the district court’s well-reasoned decision.
First, with respect to the hourly employees, there is nothing in the CBA which vests medical coverage. In fact, the durational language indicates the opposite, and I agree with the district court that there is no ambiguity in the CBA.1 But, even if we were to look at the SPDs alongside the plan itself (just as part of the plan documents, and not as extrinsic documents to resolve the purported ambiguity), that would not change the result. If anything, it seems to me that the SPDs actually strengthen the defendants’ case. The SPDs make it very clear, for example, that coverage may end or be changed “at any time,” subject only to the CBA.
The salaried employees’ claim is even more attenuated. These plaintiffs do not contend that they are entitled to lifetime health benefits, and under Sprague v. General Motors Corp., 133 F.3d 388 (6th Cir. *3731998) (en banc), it is clear that they are not. Id. at 400 (explaining that because vested benefits are “forever unalterable” and not required by law, an employer’s commitment to vest welfare benefits “is not to be inferred lightly; the intent to vest ‘must be found in the plan documents and must be stated in clear and express language’ ”) (citations omitted).
In an effort to get around these legal barriers, the plaintiffs contend (and the majority apparently agrees) that there is a genuine issue of material fact on the record as developed that the defendants breached its fiduciary duty under ERISA. However, I believe Sengpiel v. B.F. Goodrich Co., 156 F.3d 660 (6th Cir.1998) forecloses this claim. To the extent the plaintiffs claim that liability should attach because Philips did not amend its plan to specifically exclude them, the argument is equally without legal or factual merit. After the transfer of ownership, LGP immediately started administering the plans and eventually issued its own SPDs. The defendants rightly point out:
PENAC was not acting in a fiduciary capacity in transferring its retiree health liability to LGP, a fact that plaintiffs expressly do not dispute (see Pis. Br.) See Sengpiel, 15[6] F.3d at 666. Nor did it become liable for the obligations incurred afterwards by LGP’s new managers. Id.; Darnel v. East, 573 F.2d 534, 538-39 (8th Cir.1978). Once that liability was transferred, PENAC had no need to amend its retiree health program to exclude plaintiffs, since it was no longer liable for their retiree health care.
The district court thus held: “In this case, any breach of fiduciary duty by Defendants must come from the decision, by Defendants’ parent company, to transfer the assets and liabilities of PDC to LGP. By being part of a business decision implemented by their parent company, Defendants did not breach an ERISA fiduciary duty when Plaintiffs retiree health care benefits were [later] terminated.”
In sum, Philips ceased to be the plaintiffs’ employer after June 30, 2001. The plaintiffs subsequently retired from LGP, and it was five years later — after LGP’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding resulted in a termination of its retiree health benefits — that the plaintiffs sought to turn back the clock and seek lifetime health benefits from Philips. There are no genuine issues of material fact and, in my opinion, Philips is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.

. The arbitration decision between IBEW and Philips Display (which addressed the same durational clause) provides further support for this conclusion.