Thomas Cline’s Empirical Analysis
2000
Citation profile
13 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 94 later decisions — most recently August 2022 · most notably Honolulu Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee of United Association Local Union No 675 (2003), 438 F. Supp. 2d 1156 - Trustees of the Southern California Pipe Trades Health & Welfare Trust Fund v. Temecula Mechanical, Inc. (2006)
13 district ·
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 408 (§ 2002 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974)
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · First Nat. Bank of Ariz. v. Cities Service Co. · Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation · Varity Corporation v. Howe
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 94 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[M]oney that is owed to the Fund is not in the Fund, and is therefore not yet a Fund 'asset.' "). This case calls for a straightforward application of the Cline rule. Hawaii Masons alleges that Fuchs and Nelson's company failed to make certain contributions to the Trust Funds. See ECF 1. Under Cline , Fuchs and Nelson cannot be liable for the alleged nonpayments because unpaid "contributions do not become plan assets over which [even] fiduciaries of the plan have a fiduciary obligation.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“If ... documents do not exist at the time of a request, it is consistent with the aims of ERISA to impose a penalty on the plan administrator for every day that he fails to provide the document to the participant who requested it. There is nothing keeping the administrator from preparing a mandatory document where none previously existed, and it is his burden upon threat of penalty to do so.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[ t]he Regulations provide that certain “individual retirement accounts” or “individual retirement annuities,” collectively “IRAs,” fall within the scope of ERISA and others do not. 29 C.F.R. § 2510.3-2 . Under this regulation, certain IRAs which have little or no employer involvement, including no employer contributions, are excluded from the definition of “employee pension benefit plan” and thereby completely excluded from ERISA coverage. Other IRAs fall within the definition of “employee pension benefit plan” and thereby come within the ken of ERISA. See 29 C.F.R. § 2510.3 — 2(d). Here, the parties agree that “employer contributions” are made to the Plan. Although there is some disagreement over the application of other portions of § 2510.3 — 2(d)(1), that disagreement is irrelevant because any failure under § 2510.3-2(d)(l) establishes that the Plan is an “employee pension benefit plan” for the purposes of ERISA”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.