Duggins v. Fluor Daniel Inc ( 2000 )

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 99-30502
DAVID D. DUGGINS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
FLUOR DANIEL, INC.,
Defendant,
STACEY LYNN CARPENTER; MICHAEL LEE NEWSOM;
PATTY LYNN PUCKETT; CHARLES STEVEN NEWSOM,
Third Party Defendants-
Appellees.
_______________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Louisiana
_______________________________
June 29, 2000
Before JONES and BENAVIDES, Circuit Judges, and COBB*, District
Judge.
BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge:
Appellant David D. Duggins (“Duggins”) appeals the district
court’s ruling that decedent C. Fred Newsom (“Newsom”) designated
Duggins the beneficiary of his ERISA plan in Duggins’s capacity
as executor of Newsom’s estate, rather than in Duggins’s
individual capacity. The parties agree as to all the pertinent
*
District Judge of the Eastern District of Texas,
sitting by designation.
facts. Newsom had originally designated his daughter, Stacey
Lynn Carpenter (“Carpenter”), with whom he had had a difficult
relationship, as beneficiary, but in 1993, Newsom drew a line
through her name and substituted Duggins as his beneficiary. On
the plan beneficiary designation form, two lines below the line
for the beneficiary’s name was a line that prompted Newsom to
indicate his relationship to the beneficiary; here Newsom wrote
“Attorney and Executor.” At the time of the designation, Duggins
was not Newsom’s executor. However, by 1995, when Newsom died,
he had executed a will naming Duggins both executor and
beneficiary. The only issue on appeal is whether Newsom named
Duggins as his plan beneficiary in Duggins’s individual or
representative (as executor) capacity.
To answer this question, the district court applied
Louisiana law. This was in error. ERISA preempts “any and all
State laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any
employee benefit plan.” 29 U.S.C. § 1144(a). A law “relates to”
an employee benefit plan when the law has “a connection with or
reference to such a plan.” Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463
U.S. 85, 96 (1983). The law used to interpret the designation of
a beneficiary under the plan clearly relates to the plan, and
thus, ERISA preempts Louisiana law in this arena. See Manning v.
Hayes, — F.3d — (5th Cir. 2000), avaiable at 2000 WL 649952, *2
(5th Cir. (Tex.)) (“Almost every circuit court to consider the
issue, including this one, has determined that a state law
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governing the designation of an ERISA beneficiary ‘relates to’
the ERISA plan, and is therefore preempted.”). However, a court
need not even reach the issue of preemption where it can “resolve
the validity of the [designation] without going beyond the terms
of the plan itself.” Nickel v. Estes, 122 F.3d 294, 298 (5th
Cir. 1997); see also McMillan v. Parrott, 913 F.2d 310, 312 (6th
Cir. 1990) (“If the designation on file controls, administrators
and courts need look no further than the plan documents to
determine the beneficiary[.]”), quoted with approval in Nickel,
122 F.3d at 298. Here, the plain language of the plan
beneficiary designation form controls and no preemption analysis
is necessary.
Newsom named Duggins as his beneficiary. His truthful
response—on a separate line of the designation form asking about
Newsom’s relationship to the beneficiary—that Duggins was his
attorney and executor in no way casts Duggins in the role of
beneficiary in his representative capacity. The case Faircloth
v. Northwestern Nat’l Life Ins. Co., 799 F. Supp. 815 (S.D. Ohio
1992), illustrates this point. In that case, the decedent, David
Faircloth, designated his beneficiary as “Faircloth James H.
Administrator.” James Faircloth was the decedent’s brother.
Because the term “Administrator” was included on the same line as
the beneficiary’s name, and not in the portion of the form
indicating the decedent’s relationship to the beneficiary, the
court found that the decedent named James Faircloth in his
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representative capacity. Here, of course, Newsom did not
indicate that his beneficiary was “David D. Duggins, Executor,”
but rather, merely named “David D. Duggins.”
This case is no different than it would have been had Newsom
indicated that his relationship with Carpenter was “Daughter and
Executor.” In that situation, Carpenter would still be a
beneficiary in her individual capacity. The difference, of
course, is that Newsom has, by his choice of beneficiary,
forsworn his child in favor of his attorney of some thirty-odd
years. While some courts may find such conduct disfavored,
Newsom has every entitlement to dispose of his assets in
accordance with his wishes, and the plain language of the plan
beneficiary designation form indicates pellucidly that he chose
Duggins, in Duggins’s individual capacity, as beneficiary. We
therefore reverse and remand for entry of judgment in Duggins’s
favor.
REVERSED
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