Grosso v. AT&T Pension Benefit Plan

Background

The case involved the AT&T Pension Benefit Plan’s Special Update, adopted in 1997, which allowed employees to begin receiving early-retirement benefits at age fifty-five. Vincent Grosso turned fifty-five in April 2009, and Wing turned fifty-five in April 2012. The Plaintiffs challenged the denial of retroactive benefits based on their failure to file written applications. In an earlier ruling, the court sent the benefits issue back to the Plan Administrator for further consideration. The Plan Administrator again found that a written application was required. It determined that Grosso was entitled to benefits beginning February 1, 2017, and that Wing was entitled to benefits beginning April 1, 2014, based on inaccurate information she received from the Fidelity Service Center.

The court had previously granted Defendants summary judgment on the first cause of action, which alleged a violation of the Plan. The parties agreed that the second cause of action was moot. The pending motion concerned only the third cause of action, which alleged that Defendants breached fiduciary duties under 29 U.S.C. § 1104 by failing to inform Plaintiffs about the Special Update and the written-application requirement.

Legal Standard

Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine dispute about any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The court reviewed the fiduciary-duty claim independently because it did not require interpretation of the Plan and had not been sent back to the Plan Administrator.

Statute of Limitations and Repose

The court held that the claim was barred by 29 U.S.C. § 1113(1), which provides a six-year deadline measured from the latest date on which an alleged fiduciary breach could have been corrected. The court treated this provision as a statute of repose, meaning that it sets a firm outer limit on liability.

The court considered two possible dates. Under the first approach, the deadline began when each Plaintiff turned fifty-five, because that was the earliest date when a written application could have triggered entitlement to the benefits. Defendants could have corrected any failure to inform Plaintiffs by notifying them at that time. Because the action was filed in July 2018—more than six years after both birthdays—the claim was untimely. Under a second approach proposed by Defendants, the deadline would have begun when notice of the 1997 Plan change was due, which the court stated was August 1, 1998. The claim was untimely under that approach as well.

Plaintiffs also argued that their claim concerned failures to provide updated summary plan descriptions under 29 U.S.C. § 1024(b). The court rejected that argument because the complaint alleged a general failure to provide notice under the fiduciary-duty provision, not a failure to provide summary plan descriptions under § 1024. The court also stated that a claim based on the 2007 summary plan description would be time barred and that Plaintiffs had no remedy for any failure involving the 2017 summary plan description because Defendants had granted the benefits claims for the periods described in the opinion.

Fraud-or-Concealment Exception

The court rejected Plaintiffs’ argument that the fraud-or-concealment exception extended the deadline. That exception applies when a fiduciary takes additional steps to hide an alleged breach, either through an act that conceals the breach while committing it or through later active concealment. The court found no evidence that Defendants hid their alleged failure to provide notice or gave misinformation inconsistent with the notice. The alleged failure to notify was the claimed breach itself, not separate conduct concealing it.

Disposition

The court granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the third cause of action. The Clerk of Court was directed to close the case.