United States Ninth Circuit

In an ERISA action for unpaid retirement benefits, the dismissal of the complaint is affirmed in part, where Plaintiff-Employees' claims did not fall within ERISA's civil enforcement provisions, but reversed in part, where Defendant-Auditor may have owed a duty of care to Plaintiff-Employees as third-party beneficiaries.

Appellate Information

• Argued 08/11/2008
• Decided 03/20/2009
• Published 03/20/2009

Judges

• Before EUGENE E. SILER, JR., M. MARGARET McKEOWN, and CONSUELO M. CALLAHAN, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Teresa S. Renaker, Lewis, Feinberg, Lee, Renaker & Jackson, P.C., on behalf of plaintiffs-appellants Thomas A. Paulsen, Robert M. Bowden, Edward L. Frazee, Chester Madison, Robert Newell, and Lloyd Michael O'Connell III.


• For Appellees:
  
• David L. Bacon, Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner LLP, on behalf of defendants-appellees CNF Inc. and CNF Service Co., Inc., Gary S. Tell, O'Melveny & Meyers LLP, on behalf of defendants-appellees Stephen D. Richards, James R. Tener, Robert E. Wrightson, and the Administrative Committee of the Consolidated Freightways Corporation Pension Plan., Robert E. Mangels and Susan Allison, Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmano, LLP, on behalf of defendant-appellee Towers, Perrin, Forster & Crosby, Inc., Charles L. Finke and Vicente Matias Murrell, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and Charles S. Birenbaum and Robert Spagat, Winston & Strawn, LLP, on behalf of defendant-appellee Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.