IBEW LOCAL 332 Pension Trust benefit errors.

First Plan Error

First error included the Plan costing me $10K in extra support payments for wife number two by underpaying her benefit for years.

Second Plan error:

The Plan furnished wife number one a domestic relations order that was wrong. At the time she was not a beneficiary and it is contrary to plan rules to furnish private information without participant consent. The divorce was in 1980 and the request for information was in 2005, they must have wondered how much information she was entitled too after 25 years. The Plan wasted your money and a lot of mine constructing an incorrect document.

The Plan explanation: the procedure was different for divorces before 1984. Would you call that a bit of a broad explanation! They threw something together for her, without any input or permission from me, and without looking in the records to find the first QDRO, that had been in their office for five years. Why would they take an ex-spouses word as truth after twenty five years? Did they get all the court records to make sure nothing had changed? Perhaps the lawyers had a few billable hours to fill? Who knows! Well for all their work: they came up with a screwed up domestic relations order and then the Plan qualified it.

It cost me thousands to get her benefit reduced. The California Superior Court reduced her benefit because the Plan miscalculated what she had coming. The Plan said: All years of benefits earned by the electrician must be averaged together to calculate the ex-spouse benefit. The Plan had already accepted a QDRO (from wife #2) that did not average the yearly benefits. So who’s right? According to the court the averaging was wrong.
According to the Plan not averaging is OK (they did accept a non-averaging QDRO from my other wife.) The State of California did not agree with the Plan interpretation of the state law and made that clear in their opinion. The Plan screwed up.

Which leads us in another direction. The state court ruled the Plan DRO was incorrect. The Plan used the “sample plan formula” for the DRO calculation. Why is the same “sample plan formula” still published for use by electricians who want to do their own domestic relations order? Its been about four years. The court even “published” the opinion. That lets lawyers know the court has made a significant decision (case law)that can be sited at future trials. However in reality any lawyer putting together a DRO for an electrician will assume that the “sample formula” on the plan web site is correct and will not check case law. The original state judge assumed the Plan knew what was correct and rubber stamped the plan DRO, the next one may also. My state judge was an expert in criminal law not family law.

Instead of allowing $10 for 1964 to 1973 the Plan thought my ex should get $37 due to the averaging. Old timers did not pay a nickel into this part of the fund, its called “past service credit”. The maximum benefit is $10 per year of past service. According to the Plan; for past service she was entitled to about $250 and I was entitled to $90. She was happy with that split.

For the rest of her years “future service credit” the Plan also allowed her $37 per year as a benefit each month of her retirement. Her total monthly benefit, from the original Plan calculated DRO, was more than the total amount accumulated in the account during the marriage. After the trial the Plan delegate (a Kraw & Kraw attorney acting as substitute trustee) suggested that some kind of conspiracy, not a plan error, was responsible for the new lower benefit. I’m glad he wasn’t my mouthpiece, that statement would be embarrassing. Can you see the headlines? IBEW PENSION A
TRUSTEES claim court conspiracy!

The Plan rule about privacy referred to above is in “Procedures for handling proposed orders and enquiries.” And was still on the benefits web site the last time I looked along with the “sample QDRO” which is really a sample “DRO” but that’s another error.

All this averaging baloney is supposed to be easier than looking at the computer sheet, adding the benefit from each year of marriage and dividing by two. Half for participant and half for spouse unless there is some court added exception. If they can’t divide they can multiply by .5 that’s not too hard either. Now lets see, that would be 16 entries for the 16 years of marriage plus divide by two for a total of 17 entries. Compared to:
Divide the total amount of benefits over forty years by a denominator consisting of the number of benefit years to get the average contribution. Multiply average contribution by the number of years of marriage. That equals 40 entries for benefits, one division entry, and one multiplication entry for a total of 42 entries. IS THIS THE EASY WAY?
I was told that this is the easy way because its uniform for all the UAS customers such as plumbers, sheet metal, etc.

Well then how about the fair way? California is all tied up in being fair. Is it fair to lower wife #2’s benefit from 1996, the last year of the second marriage, to an amount less the half the total contribution? Is it fair to lower her first year of benefits from 1981? Is it fair to raise wife #1’s benefit to $37 in 1964 when her total credit was $10 (contribution was zero)? Is it fair to raise wife #1’s benefit to $37 in 1979 when her total contribution was less than $4 (four dollars)? Is it fair to lower the participant’s benefit to below half of the total benefit earned during his benefit accruing years? Who the hell was it that wore a tool pouch, carried a ladder, packed a lunch, pulled the wire and lifted the material? When my spouse wanted a gym membership I suggested she carry a six foot ladder around all day but she got the membership anyway.

The Superior court of the state of California demands in the case of Lehman v Lehman that the spousal benefit be based on the years of marriage. It is stated in that opinion five times by Justice Mosk. When the California Superior Court saw the case of Gray v Gray years later they confirmed that the averaging used by the plan for the original DRO was not FAIR.

Lehman v Lehman is the same case law used by the Plan to justify the original DRO they concocted for my ex-spouse. Its referred to on the benefits web site. Click on QDROs and forms.

“Rumor travels faster, but it doesn’t stay as long as truth.” Will Rogers

Observations:

The last union meeting had no report on the medical plan as announced in November.

The last meeting had no report from the Pension Trustees in charge of our $380,000,000 fund.

Happy Trails