United States First Circuit

In a suit brought by the trustees of a multi-employer pension fund against employers under 29 U.S.C. section 1132(a)(3), which supplies a cause of action in favor of an ERISA fiduciary, claiming that employers failed to make sufficient payments to keep the Fund in compliance with ERISA's minimum funding requirement for 2005, judgment of the district court is affirmed in part, vacated in part and remanded where: 1) district court's dollar-certain judgment is vacated as, the record states that, by the time the court entered the judgment, the deficiency may have vanished, and the record contains no explanation of the vanishing deficiency sufficient to salvage the judgment; 2) district court did not err in denying remediation under section 502(g)(2); and 3) district court's order denying relief under section 502(g)(1) is vacated in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Hardt, and remanded for the district court to determine whether the trustees have achieved some degree of success on the merits, and decide whether to award attorneys' fees, costs, and/or other remedies encompassed within section 502(g)(1).

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/11/2010
• Published 08/12/2010

Judges

• SELYA

Court

• United States First Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Jeffrey S. Swyers, James C. Polkinghorn