## Facts

- Nine retirees sued two employee benefit plans and Wean United, Inc. (the plans’ sponsor and administrator) after retiree benefits were reduced or discontinued.
- Plaintiffs asserted claims under the Employees Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and related theories, including alleged breaches of statutory and fiduciary duties.
- Defendants moved for leave to file a third-party complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 14(a) against a national union and a local union.
- Defendants alleged the unions were the retirees’ exclusive collective-bargaining representatives and failed to carry out duties arising from the collective-bargaining relationship, including alleged failures connected to grievance and arbitration processes.
- Defendants claimed the unions’ conduct caused or contributed to the retirees’ losses and sought to bring the unions into the case as third-party defendants.
- Plaintiffs opposed impleader, arguing Rule 14(a) did not apply because any union liability would run to the retirees, not to Wean or the plans for all or part of plaintiffs’ recovery.

## Issues

1. Whether Rule 14(a) allows a defendant in an ERISA benefits and fiduciary-duty case to implead unions based on alleged collective-bargaining or grievance-handling failures when the unions are not alleged to be liable to the defendant for all or part of the plaintiff’s claim.

## Decision

- The court denied defendants’ motion for leave to implead the unions under Rule 14(a).
- The court found defendants did not allege a valid “liability over” theory—such as indemnity, contribution, or subrogation—under which the unions might be liable to defendants for some or all of any judgment plaintiffs might obtain.
- The court treated defendants’ allegations as asserting, at most, that the unions could be directly liable to the retirees under labor-related duties, which is not a proper basis for Rule 14(a) impleader.
- The court concluded that adding the unions would inject a separate dispute about union representational and collective-bargaining obligations into an ERISA case against the employer/plans.

## Legal Principles

- Rule 14(a) permits impleader only when the proposed third-party defendant “is or may be liable” to the defending party for all or part of the plaintiff’s claim; the third-party claim must be derivative of the defendant’s potential liability to the plaintiff.
- Impleader is not available simply because a nonparty may have contributed to the plaintiff’s injury or may be directly liable to the plaintiff on a separate theory.
- A third-party claim that rests on alleged breaches of union duties owed to employees/retirees, without a pleaded right of indemnity or contribution running to the employer or plan, does not satisfy Rule 14(a).
- Case-management convenience cannot convert a separate labor dispute into a proper Rule 14(a) third-party claim when the required derivative relationship is missing.

## Conclusion

In Collini v. Wean United, Inc., the court denied leave to implead the national and local unions because defendants’ allegations described, at most, independent union duties owed to the retirees and did not show that the unions might be liable to defendants for any part of plaintiffs’ ERISA recovery, which Rule 14(a) requires.


Collini v. Wean United, Inc., 101 F.R.D. 408 (1983)