The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld a pension plan’s venue selection clause and affirmed dismissal of the participant’s claims for benefits on the ground that such claims were not filed in the authorized venue.
In Smith v. Aegon Companies Pension Plan, 769 F.3d 922 (6th Cir. 2014), the litigation was brought by a retiree who had been receiving pension benefits under a pension plan (the “Plan”) since his retirement in 2000. In 2007, the plan sponsor amended the Plan to add a venue provision that restricted participants and beneficiaries to bring claims concerning the Plan only in the federal district court in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
In 2011, the Plan informed the plaintiff that he had been receiving an overpayment of pension benefits for the previous 11 years. The Plan reduced, and then eliminated, the plaintiff’s entire monthly benefit payments, stating that it would continue to do so until it had recouped the overpayment, or until the plaintiff remitted the overpayment to the Plan.
The plaintiff exhausted administrative remedies provided by the Plan, and filed suit against his former employer in Kentucky state court, asserting claims for breach of contract, wage and hour state statutory violations, estoppel, and breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing. The employer removed the action to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, and successfully obtained dismissal of the claims on the ground that it was not a proper party defendant. The dismissal was affirmed on appeal, after which the plaintiff filed suit against the Plan in the same federal district court. The district court dismissed the plaintiff’s complaint without prejudice because of the Plan’s venue selection clause. The plaintiff appealed.
Appeals Court DecisionIn a 2-1 decision, the Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal of the claims on the ground that the...
