Cliff J. Wilson v. Board of Trustees of the Pension Trust Fund for Operating Engineers and Pension Trust Fund for Operating Engineers

Appellant Wilson brought this action to compel payment to him by appellee Trust Fund of certain disability benefits to which he asserts he is entitled. His claim is that the Trust Fund’s break-in-employment rule, as applied to him and others who might be similarly situated, is arbitrary and unreasonable in that it operates to deprive him of certain Pension Credits attributable to employment prior to January 1, 1958, the effective date of the creation of the Trust Fund. Without these credits, Wilson is not entitled to the benefits he seeks. Alterna tively, Wilson claimed that he worked enough in employment qualified for credit to make the break-in-employment rule inapplicable. The district court found that the facts did not support this contention, and its finding is not clearly erroneous. Therefore, we are concerned here only with Wilson’s assertion that, as here applied, the break-in-employment rule is arbitrary and unreasonable.

Our jurisdiction rests on Section 302(e) of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. § 186 (e), as interpreted by this court in Alvares v. Erickson, 514 F.2d 156 (9th Cir. 1975) cert. denied, 423 U.S. 874 , 96 S.Ct. 143 , 46 L.Ed.2d 106 (1975) and Burroughs v.…