Allied Structural Steel Co. v. Spannaus

438 U.S. 234 (1978)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

In 1974, appellant Allied Structural Steel Co. (company), a corporation with its principal place of business in Illinois, maintained an office in Minnesota with 30 employees. Under the company's general pension plan, adopted in 1963 and qualified as a single-employer plan under § 401 of the Internal Revenue Code, salaried employees were covered as follows: at age 65, an employee was entitled to retire and receive a monthly pension generally computed by multiplying 1% of his average monthly earnings by the total number of his years of employment with the company. The company was the sole contributor to the pension trust fund, and each year it made contributions to the fund based on actuarial predictions of eventual payout needs. Although those contributions, once made, were irrevocable in the sense that they remained part of the pension trust fund, the plan neither required the company to make specific contributions nor imposed any sanction on it for failing to contribute adequately to the fund. The plan expressly stated: No employee shall have any right to, or interest in, any part of the Trust's assets upon termination of his employment or otherwise, except as provided from time to time under this Plan, and then only to the extent of the benefits payable to such employee out of the assets of the Trust. All payments of benefits as provided for in this Plan shall be made solely out of the assets of the Trust, and neither the employer, the trustee, nor any member of the Committee shall be liable therefor in any manner. Minnesota enacted the Private Pension Benefits Protection Act. Under the Act, a private employer of 100 employees or more -- at least one of whom was a Minnesota resident -- who provided pension benefits under a plan meeting the qualifications of § 401 of the Internal Revenue Code, was subject to a 'pension funding charge' if he either terminated the plan or closed a Minnesota office. The charge was assessed if the pension funds were not sufficient to cover full pensions for all employees who had worked at least 10 years. During the summer of 1974, the company began closing its Minnesota office. On July 31, it discharged 11 of its 30 Minnesota employees, and the following month it notified the Minnesota Commissioner of Labor and Industry that it was terminating an office in the State. On August 18, the State notified the company that it owed a pension funding charge of approximately $185,000 under the provisions of the Private Pension Benefits Protection Act. The company brought suit in a Federal District Court asking for injunctive and declaratory relief. It claimed that the Act unconstitutionally impaired its contractual obligations to its employees under its pension agreement. The three-judge court upheld the constitutional validity of the Act as applied to the company, and an appeal was brought to this Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1253 (1976 ed.).