journal of pension planning & compliance - Kluwer Law International

Editor’s Note
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n Belmonte v. Examination Management Services Inc., N.D.
Tex., No. 3:07-cv-0552-L, July 30, 2010, the U.S. District Court
for the Northern District of Texas ruled that an employer would
not be equitably estopped from denying an additional 10 years
of retirement benefits on top of the five years of benefits it paid to
a former executive who argued that the employer did not satisfy the
oral promises to pay him benefits for 15 years. Granting the motion of
Examination Management Services Inc. (EMSI) to dismiss Anthony
F. Belmonte’s complaint, Judge Sam A. Lindsay rejected the argument
that Belmonte established the “extraordinary circumstances” element
of an equitable estoppel claim under ERISA because his claim was
a large sum of money and Examination Management Services, Inc.
(“EMSI”) initially denied that a top-hat plan for Belmonte existed. The
court said that failing to live up to a written or oral assurance did not
meet extraordinary circumstances.
The action was originally filed by Anthony F. Belmonte against
Defendant Examination Management Services, Inc. (“EMSI”) in the
United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern
Division, on May 31, 2005. Belmonte filed his first amended complaint
on April 18, 2006, to allege additional facts and clarify his claim for
ERISA benefits. The Illinois federal district court transferred the case to
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. On April 29, 2010,
that court granted summary judgment in favor of EMSI on Belmonte’s
ERISA benefits claim, but it afforded Belmonte an opportunity to amend
his complaint to cure deficiencies and add a claim for ERISA estoppel.
The complaint set forth a single claim for ERISA estoppel and
alleged the facts as follows. Belmonte was an employee of EMSI from
February 1986 to November 1997 when he retired. Beginning in 1991,
EMSI provided a retirement plan, the EMSI Employee Plan, for its
officers offering $1,000 per month for 15 years after retirement. In 1990,
Belmonte was told by EMSI’s president and sole owner, John Utley,
that he would not be included in this plan because his advanced age and
poor health would increase the cost of the plan but would nevertheless
receive the same retirement benefits. He received similar promises from
Utley again in the year before his retirement, this time with assurances
that Utley “might even put it in writing,” to which Belmonte responded,
“that would be nice.”
After retirement, Belmonte applied for and received retirement
benefits under a top-hat plan from EMSI that lasted for five years,
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