DeFazio v. Hollister Employee Share Ownership Trust

MEMORANDUM

A group of former participants in the Hollister Employee Share Ownership Trust (“Plan Participants” and the “Plan,” respectively) sued the Plan, Hollister, Inc., Hollister’s parent company The Firm of John Dickinson Schneider, Inc. (“JDS”), and various Plan fiduciaries for violation of their rights under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”). 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq. The parties áre familiar with the facts underlying this eleven-year dispute, and we do not recount them here.

I. The Appeal

The Plan Participants appeal the district court’s judgment in favor of the defendant companies and fiduciaries following multiple pre-trial motions and a fifteen-day bench trial. The district court entered careful and detailed orders explaining its pre-trial rulings, as well as extensive findings of fact and conclusions of law following trial.

A. The 1999 Transaction

We affirm the district court’s determination on summary judgment that the Plan Participants lacked standing to pursue relief on the 1999 Transaction, in which JDS preferred shares were transferred to a trust rather than distributed to Hollister employees. The fact that the plaintiffs are former — not…