Civil Procedure – Costs

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U.S. Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Civil Procedure – Costs

Costs were properly awarded for a frivolous challenge.

“In general the period over which plan reductions may be aggregated to determine whether a partial termination has occurred is a single plan year. But we held in a Matz decision in 2000 that because nothing ‘requires a significant corporate event to occur within a plan year, Matz can combine terminations from 1994, 1995 and 1996, provided that he show that the corporate events of those years were related. We believe this view reflects the realities of the modern corporate world. Mergers and corporate reorganizations have grown into large and complex events, and often cannot be completed in one year. Furthermore, to establish a rigid rule that only terminations in individual plan years can be counted allows an unscrupulous employer to terminate some participants in December of one year and January of the next year, thereby eviscerating … the purpose of protecting employee benefits … . We are convinced that the requirement that the multiple year terminations be proven related prevents a plaintiff from gaining undue advantage too.’ Matz v. Household Int’l Tax Reduction Investment Plan, 227 F.3d 971, 977 (7th Cir. 2000) (citations omitted), vacated on unrelated grounds, 533 U.S. 218 (2001) (mem.); see also Rev. Rul. 2007? 43, supra.”

Affirmed.

14-1683 & 14-2507 Matz v. Household International Tax Reduction Investment Plan

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Gottschall, J., Posner, J.

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