The Ninth Circuit unanimously concluded that a trustee and lawyer for certain multiemployer funds violated ERISA § 510 by unlawfully firing a whistleblower in the funds’ collections department, but, in a split decision, concluded that the retaliation did not amount to a breach of fiduciary duty.  The whistleblower was cooperating with a DOL criminal investigation of one of the trustees and had raised concerns to another trustee and the funds’ third-party administrator that the trustee under investigation was actively hindering the funds’ efforts to collect contributions from certain contributing employers.  After the trustee and the funds’ counsel, who were carrying on a romantic relationship, caught wind of the investigation, they set in motion votes by the full board of trustees to place the whistleblower on administrative leave and ultimately to terminate her employment.  The Secretary of Labor filed a civil enforcement action against the trustee and the funds’ counsel, alleging that they engaged in unlawful retaliation under ERISA § 510 and a breach of fiduciary duty under ERISA § 404.  The Secretary settled similar claims against the full board of trustees and other third-parties.  Following a bench trial, the district court entered judgment in favor of the Secretary and against the trustee and funds’ counsel on both claims.

The Ninth Circuit unanimously affirmed the district court’s ruling that the trustee and counsel engaged in unlawful retaliation in violation of Section 510.  The Court held that the whistleblower’s cooperation with the DOL was quintessential protected activity, and that defendants were liable because they arranged the vote by the full board of trustees that resulted in the whistleblower’s termination, they influenced the vote by recommending the whistleblower’s termination, and the trustee had the authority to remove other union trustees or have their positions with the union terminated.

However, the Ninth Circuit, in a split decision, reversed the district court’s ruling that the retaliation against the whistleblower constituted a breach of fiduciary duty.  In so ruling, the Court concluded that the district court failed to address the threshold question of whether the union trustee was acting in a fiduciary capacity when he engaged in the challenged conduct, i.e., placing the whistleblower on leave or terminating her employment.  The dissenting judge opined that the trustee’s effort to terminate the whistleblower was a fiduciary act because it was “inextricably intertwined” with management and administration of the funds, it was designed to shield the trustee’s role in the funds’ mismanagement from additional scrutiny, and a contrary result would subvert ERISA’s goal to safeguard plan assets.

The case is Acosta v. Brain, Nos. 16-56529, 16-56532, 2018 WL 6314617 (9th Cir. Dec. 4, 2018)

 

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Photo of Neil V. Shah Neil V. Shah

Neil V. Shah is a member of the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Group, where he focuses on ERISA litigation.

He is the lead attorney representing the firm’s Taft-Hartley plan clients in withdrawal liability and delinquent contributions matters.  As part of his practice…

Neil V. Shah is a member of the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Group, where he focuses on ERISA litigation.

He is the lead attorney representing the firm’s Taft-Hartley plan clients in withdrawal liability and delinquent contributions matters.  As part of his practice, Neil pursues employers, their owners and officers, and affiliated companies to collect the amounts owed to these plans using a variety of complex legal theories, and has secured several precedential opinions and multi-million-dollar judgments in their favor.  Neil also defends these plans in arbitrations challenging the methods and assumptions used to calculate withdrawal liability, which has yielded a number of notable arbitration decisions and court opinions.  Owing to his experience in this area, Neil is a co-editor of the withdrawal liability chapter of the premier employee benefits treatise, Employee Benefits Law, published by Bloomberg, and regularly presents on the topic before practitioners and consultants that work in the area, such as at meetings of the Conference of Consulting Actuaries and the Employee Benefits Section of ABA’s Section of Labor & Employment Law.

In addition to his Taft-Hartley plan experience, Neil has represented several plan sponsors and fiduciaries in ERISA class actions alleging that the plan’s investments or other practices are imprudent, such as excessive fee and stock drop cases.

Prior to joining Proskauer, Neil was an associate at a large regional firm, where he litigated individual and class actions involving challenges to insurer claims adjudication procedures under ERISA, fraud recoveries against healthcare providers, and claims for benefits.

Neil has authored several articles, including those published in the New Jersey Law Journal and Bloomberg National Affairs.  He is also a frequent contributor to Proskauer’s Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Blog.