Court Opinion

ID: 9468970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:28:33.513566+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:08.941660
License: Public Domain

*590PHILLIPS, Senior Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result).
I concur in the result reached by the majority, but would limit the opinion to a holding that the action of the trustees in denying appellant’s claim for pension benefits was not arbitrary or capricious under the unique facts of this case. Appellant was an officer and stockholder of the employer corporation and was a brother of its president. His brother, in his capacity as president of the corporation, wrote a letter to the trustees on June 7,1974, to the effect that no contributions were being made for appellant because he was not a member of the bargaining unit.
Appellant contends that his brother was mistaken, and that appellant in fact was a member of the bargaining unit throughout the period of his employment. There is no showing in the record that, after this error was discovered by appellant’s brother, the employer corporation ever offered to make back payments to the trustees of the amounts that should have been paid on behalf of appellant during the ten years in question.
Appellant, as an officer and employee of the corporation and the brother of the president, was in a position to have ascertained whether contributions were being made on his behalf (if he already was not aware of that fact). He also was in a position to have insisted that the corporation correct its mistake by tendering to the trustees back payments on his behalf.
Under these facts, the trustees clearly did not act arbitrarily or capriciously in their determination that appellant was not a member of the bargaining unit from 1955 to 1964.