United States Eighth Circuit

In a class action suit brought by former Northwest Airlines (NWA) employees against alleged fiduciaries of two separate NWA pension plans claiming defendants breached their fiduciary duties under ERISA, dismissal of the action is affirmed where the district court correctly found that: 1) for purposes of claims as to one plan, the Railway Labor Act's (RLA) mandatory arbitration provision divested the court of subject matter jurisdiction; and 2) plaintiffs lacked standing for their suit as to the other plan because they were not participants, beneficiaries or fiduciaries of that plan.

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/22/2008
• Published 02/22/2008

Judges

• GRUENDER, Circuit Judge., Before MURPHY, HANSEN and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Eighth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Gerald D. Wells, III, argued, Radnoe, PA, Joseph H. Meltzer, Edward W. Ciolko;  Robert I. Harwood and Samuel K. Rosen, New York, NY, Vernon J. Vander and Thomas V. Siefert, Minneapolis, MN, on the brief, for Appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Stephen P. Lucke, argued, Minneapolis, MN, Thomas Tinkham, Christopher J. Rillo. and Thomas S. Gigot, Washington, DC, on the brief, for Appellees, Steve Miller, Richard H. Anderson, Gary L. Wilson, John H. Dasburg, Steve Wilson, Douglas Steenland, Terri L. Keimig, Timothy J. Meginnes, Daniel Mathews, Michael Becker Robert Brodin, Mickey P. Foret, Hiram Cox, Thomas Momchilov, James G. Mathews, and Bernard L. Han., Robert W. Rachal, argued, New Orleans, LA, Howard Shapiro, Stacey Cerrone, Barbara Jean D'Qquila and Cynthia A. Bremer, Minneapolis, MN, on the brief, for Appellees, Steve Miller, Steve Wilson, Tom Goebel, Bill Johnston, Len Willey, Rick Wolley, and Jim MacKenzie.