Trustees of the IAM National Pension Fund v. M & K Employee Solutions
Split Score
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Case Summary
Disposition
Reversed in Part
The case concerns whether various affiliated trucking-dealership entities and their owners are liable under ERISA/MPPAA for delinquent pension contributions and withdrawal liability owed to the IAM National Pension Fund. The 12th Circuit affirmed the district court on some issues (allocation of a $1.8 million payment to interest and single-employer liability of the Sales entities), but reversed on others (interest-rate increase, pleading sufficiency for delinquent-contribution claim, and personal liability of the Bouchers) and remanded for further proceedings.
Circuit Split Identified
Legal Issue
Which legal standard applies to determine whether two nominally separate entities should be treated as a single employer for ERISA delinquent-contribution actions—the relaxed NLRB single-employer test or the traditional common-law veil-piercing standard?
Circuit Positions
Apply the NLRB four-factor single-employer test (interrelated operations, common management, centralized control of labor relations, common ownership) to ERISA delinquent-contribution claims.
Apply the traditional common-law veil-piercing/alter-ego standard and reject use of the NLRB single-employer test for ERISA delinquent-contribution claims.
Conflict Summary
The First and Twelfth Circuits apply (or, in the 12th Circuit’s case, ‘assume without deciding’ but nonetheless use) the NLRB’s four-factor single-employer test, which more readily disregards corporate separateness. The Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits require courts to use the stricter common-law standard, under which corporate separateness is pierced only for fraud or comparable injustice.