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Apogee Coal Company v. Michael H. Holland, 296 F.3d 1294, 11th Cir. (2002)
Apogee Coal Company v. Michael H. Holland, 296 F.3d 1294, 11th Cir. (2002)
3d 1294
Plaintiffs, coal operators (the "Operators"), appeal the district court's denial of
their motion for summary judgment and its grant of summary judgment to
Defendants, fund trustees ("Trustees"). The Operators claim that the Trustees
improperly assessed premiums against the Operators in response to the
Supreme Court's decision in Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 498, 118
S.Ct. 2131, 141 L.Ed.2d 451 (1998). The United States appears as amicus
curiae in favor of the Trustees. For the reasons stated below, we AFFIRM.
I.
2
Congress then passed the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992 (the
"Coal Act" or the "Act"), which merged the 1950 and 1974 Funds into a new
multi-employer plan called the UMWA Combined Benefit Fund (the
"Combined Fund"). The Combined Fund provides benefits essentially
equivalent to those provided under the 1950 and 1974 Funds, and is financed
by annual premiums assessed against coal companies that signed any NBCWA
or other agreement that obligated them to contribute to the 1950 or 1974 Funds.
Under the Act, the Commissioner of Social Security assigns retirees to
signatory coal companies according to this formula: first, to the most recent
signatory to the 1978 or a subsequent NBCWA to employ the retiree in the coal
industry for at least two years; second, to the most recent signatory to the 1978
or a subsequent NBCWA to employ the retiree in the coal industry for any
period of time; and third, to the signatory company that employed the retiree in
the coal industry for the longest period of time prior to the effective date of the
1978 NBCWA. Retirees that cannot be assigned under any of these three tiers
are placed in a pool of "unassigned" beneficiaries.
The remaining two transfers were applied to plan years 1994 and 1995.
Following the Coal Act, these payments were applied first to unassigned
beneficiary premiums and then to death benefit premiums; they could not be
applied to assigned beneficiary premiums. The remainder from the second and
third transfers was set aside for use against death benefit premiums in future
plan years.
In June 1998, the Supreme Court considered the claims of coal company
Eastern Enterprises ("Eastern"), which exited the industry in 1965 and argued
that the Social Security Administration's ("SSA's") retroactive assessment of
premiums against it under the third tier of the Coal Act's allocation scheme
constituted a taking and violated the Fifth Amendment. See E. Entrprs. v. Apfel,
524 U.S. 498, 118 S.Ct. 2131, 141 L.Ed.2d 451 (1998). The Court agreed with
Eastern and declared this third tier invalid as applied to it. See id. at 537, 118
S.Ct. 2131.
10
11
Upon receiving notice of this change, the Trustees refunded all of the premiums
that companies excused by Eastern had paid over the years. They then
retroactively recalculated the premiums of the remaining companies from 1993,
the first plan year, to the present, as though the former Eastern beneficiaries
had been considered unassigned beneficiaries from the outset. As part of this
recalculation, the Trustees reapplied the past payments from the 1950 Fund and
the AML Fund to these new premium assessments. Under this method, more of
the 1950 Fund payments were used to cover unassigned beneficiary premiums,
and less money could be set aside to cover death benefit premiums in plan
years 1997-99. The Trustees therefore assigned, for the first time, a death
benefit premium for plan year 1999 and retroactive death benefit premiums for
plan years 1997 and 1998. In total, these recalculations resulted in an additional
$21 million in premium liability for the remaining operators.
12
The Operators, all coal companies still subject to the Coal Act, then filed this
action in district court against the Trustees. They filed a motion for summary
judgment challenging the Trustees' retroactive recalculation of premium
assessments against them. The Secretary of the Interior filed an amicus curiae
brief in support of the Trustees. The district court denied the Operators' motion
for summary judgment and granted summary judgment to the Trustees. The
Operators appeal that decision to this court. This court reviews a district court's
grant of summary judgment de novo. See Clark v. Coats & Clark, Inc., 990 F.2d
1217, 1222 (11th Cir.1993).
II.
13
The parties agree that the Trustees acted properly in refunding the payments
13
made based on assignments the Supreme Court found invalid in Eastern. The
sole issue is whether the Trustees acted properly in retroactively recalculating
operators' premiums in response to Eastern. In truth, this is a fight about the
extent to which the AML Fund may be used to compensate the Combined Fund
for losses resulting from the Eastern refund. The Trustees, applying their
retroactive recalculation method, asked the AML Fund to compensate only
some of this refund; the Operators want the Fund to reimburse the entire refund
amount and rely on a different accounting method. Accordingly, they contend
that the Trustees' retroactive reassessment of premiums in response to Eastern
was improper.
14
Section 402(h) of the SMCRA governs when AML Fund monies may be used
to reimburse expenditures from the Combined Fund. Section 402(h)(2) requires
that a yearly transfer be made from the AML Fund to the Combined Fund
equivalent to the interest earned on the Fund in that year or $70 million,
whichever is greater. See 30 U.S.C. 1232(h)(2). However, 402(h)(3)(A)
limits any such transfer to the amount the Combined Fund spends on
unassigned beneficiaries for that plan year. See 30 U.S.C. 1232(h)(3)(A).
Finally, 402(h)(1) provides that transfers may be made only in plan years
1996 and later. See 30 U.S.C. 1232(h)(1). The parties agree that Congress
included this limitation because it intended that the 1950 Fund would be
applied to benefit expenditures incurred before plan year 1996, and that the
AML Fund would be used to defray benefit expenditures incurred thereafter.1
Section 402(h)(4) provides a mechanism for dealing with errors in the amount
of transfer in any given year, and states that:
15
If, for any fiscal year, the amount transferred is more or less than the amount
required to be transferred, the Secretary shall appropriately adjust the amount
transferred for the next year.
16
the AML Fund for the increased death benefit costs resulting in the later plan
years from their reapplication of the 1950 Fund monies, because of 402(h)(3)
(A)'s provision that AML Funds are available only for expenditures on
unassigned beneficiaries. See 30 U.S.C. 1232(h)(3)(A).
17
The Operators argue that it was unlawful for the Trustees to retroactively
recalculate premiums and reapply past fund transfers. Instead, they argue, the
Trustees should have treated the entire Eastern refund as a 1999 shortfall in the
unassigned beneficiaries account of the Combined Fund. They base their
argument on 9704(e)(3) of the Coal Act, which provides, under a heading
labeled "Shortfalls and surpluses":
18
if, for any plan year, there is a shortfall or surplus in any premium account, the
premium for the following plan year for each assigned operator shall be
proportionately reduced or increased, whichever is applicable, by the amount of
such shortfall or surplus.
19
20
21
In the case of any plan year beginning on or after October 1, 1994, the
applicable percentage [i.e., the amount of total benefit costs an operator must
pay] for any assigned operator shall be redetermined... by making the following
changes to the assignments as of October 1993. ... Such assignments shall be
modified to reflect any changes during the period beginning October 1, 1993,
and ending on the last day of the preceding plan year pursuant to the appeals
process under section 9706(f).
22
23
24
The Operators do not contend that the Trustees' 1996 retroactive reassessment
of premiums was in any way improper or should be reversed. Indeed, they
benefitted substantially from it. Nevertheless they challenge its use here, and
this reveals a core problem with their argument: they cannot explain why
retroactive reassessment was proper in 1996 and not now. Moreover, they
cannot point to any instance in the history of the Act where a refund paid due to
a change in assignment was treated as a shortfall in the unassigned beneficiary
account for that year.
25
Finally, there are fundamental problems with the approach the Operators
advocate here. As noted above, SMCRA 402(h)(3)(A) provides clearly that
reimbursements from the AML Fund may be had only for amounts spent on
unassigned beneficiary benefits. See 30 U.S.C. 1232(h)(3)(A). But the monies
refunded to the Eastern companies included amounts spent on death benefits.
Thus, to allow the entire Eastern refund to be treated as a shortfall in the
unassigned beneficiaries account would force the AML Fund to compensate
expenditures it is not meant to cover.
26
27
In sum, we find that although the Coal Act does not specifically address
changes in assignment resulting from judicial decisions, there is no meaningful
basis for treating such corrections differently from other administrative changes
in assignment provided for in the Act. Thus the retroactive reassessment of
premiums conducted by the Trustees was consistent with both the language of
the Coal Act and with their own precedent in applying it. In contrast, the
alternative, "shortfall" approach advocated by the Operators, which has never
been used in connection with changes in assignment, is fundamentally at odds
with the SMCRA. Accordingly, we conclude that the Trustees' retroactive
reassessment of premiums in this case was proper, and that the district court
therefore properly denied the Operators' motion for summary judgment and
granted summary judgment in favor of the Trustees.
28
AFFIRMED.
Notes:
*
Honorable Eugene E. Siler, Jr., U.S. Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit, sitting
by designation
There is a limited exception to this scheme in that 1950 Fund monies not used
in plan years 1993-95 may be set aside and applied to death benefit premiums
in future plan years. That was done here, and the undoing of this carry-forward,