Cedric Clark v. Washington Teamsters Welfare Trust ( 1993 )

BOOCHEVER, Circuit Judge,

dissenting:

I am unable to agree that Article 12 of the collective bargaining agreement reasonably can be construed as requiring 80 hours of compensation for bargaining unit work as opposed to requiring 80 hours of compensation only. In my opinion, the Trustees’ decision should be upheld only if it was based on Clark’s failure to perform more than de min-imis bargaining unit work.

Article 1 of the agreement between the company and Local 524 makes the union the sole and exclusive bargaining representative for all employees except “supervisors” and “owners” who are not engaged in bargaining unit work. Thus a first question before the Trustees was whether Clark was engaged in any bargaining unit work during the requisite period.

The Trustees found that Clark did at least some bargaining unit work. In an affidavit submitted to the district court, the area manager for the Trust administrator stated that the affidavits that were before the Trustees “do not show that Clark was doing more than diminimus [sic] bargaining unit work during that period.” The Trustees’ opinion of June 8, 1989, stated only that Clark “did not perform sufficient bargaining unit work (as defined in the governing labor agreement), to be eligible to participate under the Trust’s rules.”

Article 12, section 12.1 of the collective bargaining agreement specifies, “The Employer shall pay each month into the following employee health care benefit plans, on account of each member of the bargaining unit who was compensated for eighty (80) hours or more in the preceding month.” The provision does not specify that the compensation for 80 hours must be for bargaining unit work, and if so construed it could have very adverse results on union members who, from time to time, may be required to do some non-union work during the month. It seems to me that section 12.1 is perfectly clear and if it were intended to require compensation for 80 hours of union work, it would have so specified. The requirement of compensation for 80 hours of bargaining unit work is not contained anywhere in the agreement.

We uphold the eligibility decisions of the trustees of an employee benefit plan “unless they are arbitrary, capricious, made in bad faith, not supported by substantial evidence, or erroneous on a question of law.” Malhiot v. Southern California Retail Clerks Union, 735 F.2d 1133, 1135 (9th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1189, 105 S.Ct. 959, 83 L.Ed.2d 965 (1985). We have held that “imposition of a standard that is not contained in the terms of a[n employee welfare benefit] plan amounts to an arbitrary and capricious decision.” Blau v. Del Monte Corp., 748 F.2d 1348, 1354 (9th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 865, 106 S.Ct. 183, 88 L.Ed.2d 152 (1985). Because section 12.1 is clear and unambiguous, if the Trustees’ decision rewrote that provision to require 80 hours bargaining unit work, I would affirm the district court’s reversal of their decision as arbitrary and capricious.

In the context of that section, the Trustees’ final decision on appeal is unclear. The statement that Clark “did not perform sufficient bargaining unit work (as defined in the governing labor agreement), to be eligible to participate under the Trust’s rules” (emphasis added) could refer to his failure to perform 80 hours of bargaining unit compensation, or it could refer to the contention that Clark performed only de minimis bargaining unit work. In the latter ease, I believe it would be within the discretion of the Trustees to conclude that Clark’s minimal bargaining unit work was not sufficient to make him eligible to participate.

Accordingly, I would remand to the district court with instructions to remand to the Trustees for clarification of their decision.