CourtListener opinion 10166711

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA 
 INDIANAPOLIS DIVISION 

DAVID L. THORPE, ) 
 ) 
 Plaintiff ) 
 ) 
 v. ) Cause No. 1:19-CV-2988 RLM-MPB 
 ) 
INDIANA ELECTRICAL WORKERS ) 
PENSION TRUST FUND, I.B.E.W., ) 
 ) 
 Defendant ) 

 OPINION AND ORDER 

 This dispute arises out of a disagreement regarding the payment of 
retirement benefits from a multi-employer pension plan governed by ERISA. 
David L. Thorpe brings two claims for pension benefits against the Indiana 
Electrical Workers Pension Trust Fund, I.B.E.W. The first is a claim for pension 
plan benefits and rights under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 
1974, and the second is an alternative claim for benefits under a theory of 
estoppel. The fund moves for judgment on the pleadings as to the second claim. 
For the reasons set forth below, the court GRANTS the defendant's motion. 
 A party may move for judgment on the pleadings after the pleadings are 
closed. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c). "To survive a motion for judgment on the pleadings, 
a complaint must state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Milwaukee 
Police Ass'n v. Flynn, 863 F.3d 636, 640 (7th Cir. 2017) (quoting Wagner v. Teva 
Pharm. USA, Inc., 840 F.3d 355, 357–358 (7th Cir. 2016)). The court construes 
the complaint in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, accepts all 
well-pleaded facts as true, and draws all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's 
favor. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009); Bell v. City of Chicago, 835 
F.3d 736, 738 (7th Cir. 2016). A Rule 12(c) motion can be granted "when it 

appears beyond a doubt that the plaintiff cannot prove any facts to support a 
claim for relief and the moving party demonstrates that there are no material 
issues of fact to be resolved." Moss v. Martin, 473 F.3d 694, 698 (7th Cir. 2007). 
 The following facts are taken from Mr. Thorpe's complaint and accepted as 
true for the purpose of deciding the fund's motion. Mr. Thorpe has been a 
participant in the defendant pension fund since 1978. In 2006, he and his wife, 
Kathleen, divorced. During their divorce proceedings, a court entered a domestic 
relations order that divided Mr. Thorpe's pension benefits between him and Mrs. 

Thorpe. The pension fund administrator accepted the domestic relations order 
and entered a qualified domestic relations order (QDRO) to show in Mr. Thorpe's 
pension plan that part of his benefits were payable to Mrs. Thorpe. 
 Mr. Thorpe applied for his pension in May 2008. He elected a 10-year 
certain pension option; the pension fund administrator confirmed the election 
and told Mr. Thorpe he would receive $3,847 per month. Mr. Thorpe asked Carol 
Lyons, a representative of the fund, if the $3,847 per month figure was accurate 
in light of the QDRO awarding Ms. Thorpe a portion of his benefits. Ms. Lyons 

asked the fund's actuarial service for a benefits calculation for Mr. Thorpe. She 
forwarded the actuarial service's report to the fund's counsel, who said that 
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under the QDRO, the benefits payable to Mrs. Thorpe didn't need to be 
segregated until she elected to begin receiving them, and until then, Mr. Thorpe 
could receive 100 percent of his monthly benefit. 
 Mrs. Thorpe applied to receive her benefits from the pension fund in April 

2018. The pension fund, the actuarial service, and the pension fund's counsel 
(which had changed since 2008) revisited the QDRO and recalculated Mr. and 
Mrs. Thorpe's benefits. In June 2018, the fund wrote Mr. Thorpe a letter to tell 
him that there had been an error in its interpretation of the QDRO and that his 
pension would be reduced so it could recoup the overpayment he'd been 
receiving for ten years. Mr. Thorpe appealed the pension fund's decision. The 
fund upheld its decision, and this suit followed. 
 The fund characterizes Count II of Mr. Thorpe's complaint as a state law 

claim for estoppel and argues that ERISA preempts such a claim. When faced 
with an assertion of "conflict preemption" under ERISA: 

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 [t]he statute provides the starting point for [the court's] analysis. 
 Section 514(a) [29 U.S.C. § 1144(a)] says that ERISA shall supersede 
 any and all State laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to 
 any employee benefit plan. The trick, as the Court explained in New 
 York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers 
 Insurance Co., 514 U.S. 645 (1995), is to determine how close a 
 relation the state law must have to the plan. In Shaw v. Delta Air 
 Lines, Inc., 463 U.S. 85 (1983), the Court held that [a] law relates to 
 an employee benefit plan, in the normal sense of the phrase, if it has 
 a connection with or reference to such a plan. It went on to stress 
 that ERISA does not preempt only state laws specifically designed to 
 affect employee benefit plans, or only state laws dealing with the 
 subject matters covered by ERISA. Instead, as the Court reiterated 
 later in Aetna Health Inc. v. Davila, 542 U.S. 200 (2004), ERISA 
 includes expansive pre-emption provisions, which are intended to 
 ensure that employee benefit plans regulation would be exclusively 
 a federal concern. 

McDonald v. Household Int., Inc., 425 F.3d 424, 428 (7th Cir. 2005) (quotations, 
citations, and parallel citations omitted). 
 While ERISA's preemption provisions are expansive, the party asserting 
the preemption defense "bear[s] the considerable burden of overcoming the 
starting presumption that Congress does not intend to supplant state law." De 
Buono v. NYSA-ILA Med. and Clinical Servs. Fund, 520 U.S. 806, 814 (1997) 
(quotations and citations omitted). This is especially true for areas traditionally 
left to the states for regulation. Trustees of the AFTRA Health Fund v. Biondi, 
303 F.3d 765, 775 (7th Cir. 2002). For the court to determine "whether the 
normal presumption against pre-emption has been overcome in a particular 
case, [the court] must go beyond the unhelpful text and the frustrating difficulty 
of defining its key term," De Buono v. NYSA-ILA Fund, 520 U.S. at 813-814 
(quotations and citations omitted), and "look both to the objectives of the ERISA 
statute as a guide to the scope of the state law that Congress understood would 
survive as well as to the nature of the effect of the state law on ERISA plans." 
Egelhoff v. Egelhoff, 532 U.S. 141, 147 (1997) (quotations and citations omitted); 
see also AFTRA Health Fund v. Biondi, 303 F.3d at 776, n.8 ("we join the First 
Circuit in concluding that when the nexus between a state law and ERISA is less 

than clear, federal courts are required to evaluate the law in light of ERISA's 
statutory objectives—regardless of which category of preemption the state law 
might fall under."). 
 In short, the court must decide whether Mr. Thorpe's estoppel claim is of 
the type Congress intended to supplant when it passed ERISA, and also what 
effect the law upon which this claim is brought has on ERISA plans, all the while 
keeping in mind ERISA's stated objectives: 
 to protect . . . the interests of participants . . . and their beneficiaries, 
 by requiring the disclosure and reporting . . . of financial and other 
 information . . . by establishing standards of conduct, responsibility, 
 and obligation for fiduciaries of employee benefit plans, and by 
 providing for appropriate remedies, sanctions and ready access to 
 the Federal courts . . . and by improving the equitable character and 
 soundness of such plans by requiring them to vest the accrued 
 benefits of employees with significant periods of service, to meet 
 minimum standards of funding, and by requiring termination 
 insurance. 

AFTRA Health Fund v. Biondi, 303 F.3d at 774 (quoting 29 U.S.C. § 1001(b)-(c)) 
(quotations and citations omitted). For this purpose: 
 the Supreme Court has identified at least three instances where a 
 state law can be said to have a connection with or reference to 
 employee benefit plans, when it (1) mandates employee benefit 
 structures or their administration, (2) binds employers or plan 
 administrators to particular choices or precludes uniform 
 administration practice, thereby functioning as a regulation of an 
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 ERISA plan itself, and (3) provides an alternate enforcement 
 mechanism to ERISA. 

AFTRA Health Fund v. Biondi, 303 F.3d at 775 (quotations and citations 
omitted). 
 The fund argues that Mr. Thorpe seeks the same relief under his estoppel 
claim that he seeks under his ERISA claim, so any state law estoppel claim is 
preempted. Mr. Thorpe says in his complaint that he is making a claim for 
estoppel "in the alternative to, and not in addition to, Count I." Section 
502(a)(1)(B) permits a plan participant to bring a civil action "to recover benefits 
due to him under the terms of his plan, to enforce his rights under the terms of 
the plan, or to clarify his rights to future benefits under the terms of the plan." 
29 U.S.C. § 1132. A state law can't provide an alternative enforcement 
mechanism to ERISA, AFTRA Health Fund v. Biondi, 303 F.3d at 775, so Mr. 
Thorpe can't bring a claim for estoppel under state law. 
 Mr. Thorpe argues that his estoppel claim is viable under the federal 
common law of ERISA, citing Black v. TIC Investment Corporation for the 

proposition that "estoppel principles generally apply to all legal actions." 900 
F.2d 112, 115 (7th Cir. 1990). Mr. Thorpe's arguments are unavailing. The circuit 
court in Black limited its application of estoppel principles, holding "that 
estoppel principles are applicable to claims for benefits under unfunded single-
employer welfare benefit plans under ERISA. We express no opinion as to the 
application of estoppel principles in other situations." 900 F.2d at 115. The 

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circuit court has declined to extend its ruling in Black to claims against funded 
or multi-employer plans, noting that "allowing estoppel claims against funded, 
multi-employer plans may undermine the actuarial soundness of the plans." 
Pearson v. Voith Paper Rolls, Inc., 656 F.3d 504, 509 at n.2 (7th Cir. 2011) 

(collecting cases). Bound by the precedent of this circuit, the court declines to 
extend the circuit court's rulings. 
 Based on the foregoing, the defendant's motion for judgment on the 
pleadings as to Count II of the complaint [Doc. No. 9] is GRANTED. 
 SO ORDERED. 
 ENTERED: August 4, 2020 

 /s/ Robert L. Miller, Jr. 
 Judge, United States District Court 

Distribution: All electronically 
registered counsel of record 

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