Guzman v. Building Service 32BJ Pension Fund

Background

Carlos J. Guzman, who was representing himself, brought claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act against Building Service 32BJ Pension Fund, Peter Goldberger, Ronald Raab, Kyle Bragg, and Howard Rothschild. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint.

The defendants attached several documents to their motion. The court stated that some appeared to be incorporated into the complaint and could be considered when deciding a dismissal motion, while others were not clearly incorporated. Guzman also submitted documentary evidence in opposition.

Court’s Analysis

When deciding a dismissal motion, a court generally considers the pleadings and materials properly incorporated into them. If the court considers other materials outside the pleadings, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12 allows it either to exclude those materials or to convert the motion into one for summary judgment. Summary judgment is a procedure for deciding whether the evidence shows that no genuine dispute about an important fact requires a trial and that one party is entitled to judgment under the law.

The court explained that formal notice of conversion is particularly important when a party is representing himself because he may not understand that he must submit evidence addressing the issues raised by a summary judgment motion. The court also noted that summary judgment is generally an appropriate way to evaluate claims for benefits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

Order

The court stated that it intended to convert the defendants’ motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment and formally notified the parties of that intent. It allowed both sides to submit additional materials permitted by Rule 56 and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and to make further arguments about the documents already in the record. Those submissions were due February 24, 2023.

The court reminded the parties that benefit claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act are ordinarily decided using the administrative record—the materials previously before the plan’s claims administrator—unless the court finds good cause to consider other evidence. The order did not decide whether Guzman or the defendants were correct on the underlying claims.