View From Groom: DOL Weighs in Again on Select Group Requirement for Top Hat Plans

We discuss below how the courts and the Department of Labor (“DOL”) have interpreted the requirement that participation in a “top hat plan” be limited to a “select group of management or highly compensated employees” (a “Select Group”). The DOL’s recent resurfacing on the issue in an amicus brief after over two decades is noteworthy, particularly given the tension between its position and a significant amount of federal case law.

Background

Although a nonqualified deferred compensation plan typically is a pension plan subject to requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a “top hat” pension plan is exempt from the participation, funding, vesting and fiduciary responsibility rules of ERISA. ¹ERISA §§ 201(2), 301(a)(3) and 401(a)(1). We say “typically” because some courts have ruled that very simple plans, especially those covering only one or two persons, are not ERISA “plans” at all. See, e.g., Sheer v. Israel Disc. Bank of N.Y., No. 06 Civ. 4995(PAC) (S.D.N.Y. March 7, 2007). In order to qualify as a top hat plan, a plan must be unfunded and “maintained by an employer primarily for the purpose of providing deferred compensation for a select group of management or highly compensated employees.” ²Id.

The DOL has never issued regulations interpreting the meaning of this Select Group requirement. The DOL did address the issue in several Advisory Opinions, but issued the last of these opinions in 1992. In May 2015, however, the DOL again weighed in on the issue, filing an amicus brief with the Fourth Circuit in support of overturning the Maryland District Court’s recent decision in the case of Bond v. Marriott International, Inc. Stock and Cash Incentive Plan
121 PBD, 6/24/15, 42 BPR 1157, 6/30/15.

According to the DOL in its brief, the district court found that Marriott’s plan providing deferred stock bonus awards to participants was in fact a top hat plan exempt from ERISA’s minimum vesting requirements. Notably, the court refused to apply the DOL’s longstanding view that ERISA’s use of the word “primarily” refers only to the purpose of the plan, and not the composition of the group of plan participants. According to the DOL, the court also refused to consider whether the employees at issue had sufficient bargaining power such that ERISA protections were not necessary for them. Following appeal, the DOL submitted its amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs, reiterating its stance that a plan must consist solely of management or highly compensated employees to satisfy the Select Group requirement. ³Brief for the Sec’y of Labor as Amicus Curiae Supporting Plaintiffs-Appellants at 17-18, Bond v. Marriott Int’l, Inc., No. 15-1160(L) & 15-1199 (4th Cir. May 28, 2015) [hereafter “DOL Amicus Brief”].

While there is very little guidance in the legislative history of ERISA on this Select Group requirement, exploring the guidance from federal court cases is important in determining the landscape of the Select Group issue. With the exception of the DOL’s recent amicus brief, most of the useful guidance on this issue has come from the federal court cases discussed below. These cases typically arise when participants in a nonqualified plan do not receive the benefits they expected from the plan. The participants sue the employer and/or the plan administrator claiming that the plan is not a top hat plan because participation was not limited to a Select Group. Thus, the participants claim the plan was required to comply with all the requirements of ERISA for pension plans, including the participant-favorable rules regarding eligibility, vesting, fiduciary responsibility and/or funding.

The courts have taken varied and sometimes conflicting approaches to the Select Group issue. However, most have focused on specific objective measures, such as the percentage of the workforce covered by the plan and the average salary of the covered employees compared to the average for the workforce, in trying to determine whether a plan covers a Select Group. In its earlier efforts to address the issue in Advisory Opinions, the DOL looked at similar objective factors in performing the Select Group analysis. However, in a 1990 Opinion, the DOL indicated a shift in its thinking on this issue that has now been reiterated in the recent DOL amicus brief. As discussed below, several courts have incorporated the DOL’s thoughts into their Select Group analysis. And, it will be interesting to see if and how federal courts respond to the DOL amicus brief.

One thing that is clear from the case law and the DOL Advisory Opinions is that the Select Group determination is based on a consideration of all the relevant facts and circumstances, and no single factor is determinative or consistently applied from one jurisdiction to another. We address below the key factors the courts and the DOL have considered in their analyses.

Percentage of Workforce Covered

One factor that the courts and the DOL frequently address in performing the Select Group analysis is the percentage of a company’s workforce covered by the plan. Generally, the smaller the percentage, the more likely it is that the participants are members of a Select Group. However, the relevant authorities do not establish a bright-line rule as to what percentage is sufficiently small.

The courts and the DOL have generally upheld the top hat status of plans with coverage percentages in the 4-5% range, ⁴See, e.g., Duggan v. Hobbs, 99 F.3d 307, 312-13 (9th Cir. 1996) (5% coverage); Belka v. Rowe Furniture Corp., 571 F. Supp. 1249, 1252-53 (D. Md. 1983) (4.6% coverage); DOL Adv. Op. 75-64 (Aug. 1, 1975) (4% coverage). and the First Circuit seemed to have little trouble concluding that a plan available to 8.7% of an employer’s workforce covered a Select Group. ⁵See Alexander v. Brigham and Women’s Physicians Org., Inc., 513 F.3d 37, 46 (1st Cir. 2008) (summarily stating that at this coverage level, the group was quantitatively select before moving on to the “even more open-and-shut” question of whether the employees were highly compensated). The Second Circuit held that a plan available to 15.34% of an employer’s workforce covered a Select Group; however, the court noted that this level of coverage was probably “at or near the upper limit of the acceptable size for a ‘select group.’ ” ⁶Demery v. Extebank Deferred Compensation Plan (B), 216 F.3d 283, 289 (2d Cir. 2000). Similarly, a district court found a top hat plan existed where “less than 15%” of the employer’s total workforce was eligible to participate. ⁷Callan v. Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., No. 09 CV 0566 BEN (BGS) (S.D. Cal. Aug. 30, 2010) (stating that “plans that limit participation to 15% or less have consistently been treated as top hat plans”). However, other courts have held that plans covering 12.8% and 18.7% of a company’s workforce did not cover a Select Group. ⁸Daft v. Advest, Inc., No. 5:06-cv-1876 (N.D. Ohio Jan. 18, 2008), rev’d on other grounds, 658 F.3d 583 (6th Cir. 2011) (stating that “[12.87%] is not so small that it would automatically qualify as a ‘select group’”); Darden v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 717 F. Supp. 388, 397 (E.D.N.C. 1989), aff’d on other grounds, 922 F.2d 203 (4th Cir. 1991), rev’d on other grounds, 503 U.S. 318 (1992) (finding 18.7% coverage too large to qualify as a Select Group). The courts and the DOL have also ruled that plans with typically acceptable coverage percentages in the 5% to 7% range were not top hat plans when other unfavorable factors were present. ⁹See Carrabba v. Randalls Food Markets, Inc., 38 F. Supp. 2d 468 (N.D. Tex. 1999) (coverage less than 5%); DOL Adv. Op. 85-37A (Oct. 25, 1985) (coverage less than 7%).

It is not always clear who to count when determining the percentage of a workforce covered. Generally, courts have focused on the number of employees eligible or invited to contribute to a plan. ¹⁰See, e.g., Demery; Guiragoss v. Khoury, 444 F. Supp. 2d 649, 653-54 (E.D. Va. 2006); Carrabba. However, the First Circuit made a distinction in Alexander v. Brigham and Women’s Physicians Org., Inc.
¹¹513 F.3d 37 (1st Cir. 2008). between technical eligibility and realistic eligibility. In this case, the employer maintained two deferred compensation plans for its surgeons. The surgeons who earned more than the organization’s salary cap were required to defer the excess salary into these two plans.

The court in Alexander reasoned that if participation is optional, the percentage of employees covered includes all employees invited to participate. However, if participation is realistically available only to the highest earning employees, the court deemed it appropriate to consider only the actual participants in the plan in determining such percentage. Thus, even though almost all of the organization’s surgeons (30% of total employees) were technically “eligible” to participate in the plans, only the most profitable surgeons could realistically exceed the salary cap and participate in the plans, which resulted in actual participation percentages of 8.7% or less.

Two other issues impact the coverage percentage analysis: (1) whether the percentage of employees covered is based on the employee population of a plan sponsor or, where applicable, the plan sponsor’s entire controlled group; and (2) whether the percentage of employees covered should include former employees. Although not explicitly addressed, the facts in Demery imply that a court may look to the employees of the plan sponsor (i.e., determine percentage at the subsidiary level) rather than all employees of the entire controlled group. ¹²In Demery, the court referred to a corporate parent, while the percentage analysis focused only on the workforce of Extebank, the subsidiary and plan sponsor. Participants in the plan in this case were all employees of one subsidiary, the plan sponsor. And a district court recently defined the relevant employee pool as the employees of the plan sponsor and its participating subsidiaries because the plan’s terms identified the employees of the company and its participating subsidiaries as eligible. ¹³Tolbert v. RBC Capital Markets Corp., No. CIV.A. H-11-0107 (S.D. Tex. Apr. 28, 2015). On the second issue, most courts only mention current employees when determining the percentage of coverage. However, in the Belka case, the court took into account former employees who still had an account in the plan. Generally, the statutory language requires coverage of a “select group of management or highly compensated employees.” By definition, a former employee is not management or a highly compensated employee. Thus, even though a former employee may still be a participant in the plan, ¹⁴The definition of “participant” under ERISA is “any employee or former employee… who is or may become eligible to receive a benefit of any kind from an employee benefit plan.” ERISA § 3(7). However, the court in Alexander rejected the use of the statutory definition of “participants” under ERISA for determining the relevant group. it seems unlikely that most courts considering the issue would take into account former employees.

Average Salary Comparison

Many courts and the DOL have also taken into account how the average salary of plan participants compares to the average salary of all employees. The larger the difference is between plan participants’ average salary and the average salary of employees generally, the greater the likelihood of a finding of a Select Group. The district court in Belka upheld a plan’s status as a top hat plan where the average salary of plan participants was approximately 31/2 times that of the average of all employees. Similarly, the Second Circuit in Demery upheld a plan’s status as a top hat plan where the average salary of participants was “more than double” the average salary of employees generally. ¹⁵See also Callan (finding a 2 to 1 ratio between participants and all employees to be sufficient).

While courts have typically based this comparison on salary only, a couple of courts have considered all other forms of compensation. ¹⁶See Fishman v. Zurich American Ins. Co., 539 F. Supp.2d 1036, 1046 n.12 (N.D. Ill. 2008) (taking into account all compensation reportable on Form W-2); see also In re New Century Holdings, Inc., 387 B.R. 95, 113 (Bankr. D. Del. 2008) (considering all compensation, including commissions, earned by the employee in determining whether an employee is “highly compensated”). Some district courts have opted to analyze each plan participant’s compensation rather than the average participant salary figure. ¹⁷See Daft and Fishman. The general concern for these courts was that the average participant salary figure could be skewed by the inclusion of a few highly-paid participants. Nevertheless, the majority of courts that have analyzed this issue have compared averages.

‘Management or Highly Compensated’

As discussed above, a Select Group must be made up of management or highly compensated employees. ERISA does not provide any guidance on how to construe these terms. Indeed, the Carrabba court even required evidence that the participants in a plan were “a select group” of a larger group of management or highly compensated employees. The courts and the DOL have looked carefully at the job titles of individuals eligible to participate in a plan to determine if they are “management.” ¹⁸ See, e.g., Demery and Carrabba; DOL Adv. Op. 85-37A (Oct. 25, 1985). The courts and the DOL have also looked at the individual salaries of covered employees (apart from comparing average salaries) to determine whether they are “highly compensated.” ¹⁹See, e.g., Carrabba; DOL Adv. Op. 85-37A (Oct. 25, 1985).

Both the DOL and IRS have stated that the definition of “highly compensated employee” found in Code § 414(q) (generally employees with taxable income of $120,000 or more for 2015) is not a “safe harbor” definition for this purpose. ²⁰See preamble to Code § 414(q) regulations, 53 Fed. Reg. 4965, 4967 (Feb. 18, 1988) (“The Departments of Treasury and Labor concur in the view that a broad extension of 414(q) to determinations under [the top hat exemption] would be inconsistent with the tax and retirement policy objectives of encouraging employers to maintain tax-qualified plans that provide meaningful benefits to rank and file employees.”). Thus, in most cases, use of the Code § 414(q) definition to determine plan eligibility may be considered aggressive. Nevertheless, a Delaware bankruptcy court ruled in 2004 (when the §414(q) amount was $90,000) that a plan covering participants having pay levels at $100,000 met the Select Group requirement. ²¹See In re IT Group, Inc., 305 B.R. 402, 411 (Bankr. D. Del. 2004). The court reviewed both titles and pay levels of participants with respect to the qualitative requirement that plan participants must be “high level” employees, either “management” or “highly compensated.” The court concluded that the $100,000 floor on participants’ salaries was itself sufficient to satisfy the “highly compensated” criteria. Whether all courts would rule the same way is unclear. However, this case provides an example of flexible criteria a court may use in the Select Group analysis.

Thus, although no bright-line guidance has emerged from the analyses of the DOL and the courts on these issues, reasonable efforts should be made to determine whether the covered employees may fairly be considered to be management and/or highly compensated.

‘Bargaining Power’ of Participants

As noted above, the DOL shifted its focus regarding the Select Group analysis in 1990. According to the DOL, Congress adopted the top hat plan exemption because it recognized that:

certain individuals, by reason of their position or compensation level, have the ability to affect or substantially influence, through negotiation or otherwise, the design and operation of their deferred compensation plan, taking into consideration any risks attendant thereto, and, therefore, would not need the substantive rights and protections of Title I [of ERISA]. ²²DOL Adv. Op. 90-14A (May 8, 1990); see also DOL Adv. Op. 92-13A, n.1 (May 19, 1992) (repeating same position).

The DOL also reiterated this view in its recent amicus brief. The DOL, however, has cited nothing in the legislative history to support its view. The DOL also has not expressly stated that the ability to negotiate the terms of a plan would need to be considered as the factor (or even as one of many factors) in actually performing the Select Group analysis. Finally, the DOL has not disavowed its previous Advisory Opinions on the issue, which had focused on the more objective factors described above.

Several courts have agreed with the DOL’s view of Congressional intent. ²³See, e.g., Demery and Spacek v. Maritime Assoc.-I.L.A. Pension Plan, 134 F.3d 283, 296 n.12 (5th Cir. 1998) (abrogated on other grounds). Some courts have also indicated that the ability to negotiate the terms of a plan should be one of the factors considered in the Select Group analysis, although they did not seem to place much emphasis on this factor. ²⁴See, e.g., Demery (insufficient evidence to analyze); Carrabba (stating that the DOL’s view on this issue is “perhaps” correct). The Ninth Circuit, however, placed significant emphasis on this factor in its lone “Select Group” decision, Duggan v. Hobbs. ²⁵See also Van Gent v. Saint Louis Country Club, No. 4:08CV959 FRB (E.D. Mo. Nov. 27, 2013) (noting that plaintiff possessed bargaining power over the terms of top hat plan); In re Battram, 214 B.R. 621, 625 (Bankr. C.D. Cal. 1997) (stating that under Duggan, the two relevant factors are percentage of workforce covered and ability to negotiate). The district court in Tolbert also recently placed significant emphasis on the factor, but found that bargaining power is not a determining factor in isolation and is not a separate factor or requirement.

In Bakri v. Venture Mfg. Co., the Sixth Circuit referred to the DOL’s position that top hat plans should be for high-ranking management personnel who have the ability to protect their benefit interests, through negotiations or otherwise. The Sixth Circuit outlined a four-factor Select Group test incorporating the usual objective criteria, yet then seemed to focus exclusively on the fact that eligible managers and individuals holding secretarial and administrative positions did not have any “supervisory, policy making, or executive responsibility, and had little ability to negotiate pension, pay or bonus compensation.” ²⁶See Bakri v. Venture Mfg. Co., 473 F.3d 677, 680 (6th Cir. 2007). Finding that these employees had little to no bargaining power, the court concluded that the deferred compensation plan was not a top hat plan.

As stated above, the DOL did not (and could not) cite any legislative history supporting its view on Congressional intent on this point. The statute itself simply requires that the plan cover a select group of management or highly compensated employees. Thus, covered employees need only be management or highly paid, not both. At the enactment of ERISA (and continuing today), there are highly paid employees (e.g., salespersons) who do not have the ability to bargain over the terms of their nonqualified benefit plans. Presumably, if Congress intended to do so, it could have made clear that a top hat plan could not cover these types of employees. The First Circuit and other courts have embraced this logic, criticizing other courts for adopting a rationale set out in an agency opinion as an independent statutory test. ²⁷See Alexander and Fishman.

In many circumstances, it would also be difficult to apply this “ability to negotiate” test to particular facts. For example, as the Ninth Circuit found in Duggan, it would be easy to apply this test if a deferred compensation plan was negotiated by an attorney on behalf of an executive as part of his severance package. ²⁸See also In re Battram (noting the agreement’s individualized disability benefits reflect the employee’s ability to negotiate). The task, however, would be much more difficult with a typical deferred compensation plan covering a number of employees. ²⁹See Carrabba (noting the difficulty applying this test). There, evidence that the covered employees had negotiated employment or change in control agreements, or otherwise had individualized pay and/or benefits packages (e.g., option grants, incentive arrangements), should help to demonstrate the requisite ability to negotiate over the terms of the plan.

However, the fact that covered employees did not negotiate their individual pay and/or benefits packages or the terms of the plan should not foreclose a determination that the plan satisfies the Select Group requirement. Notably, the Tolbert court recently found that, to the extent there was an ability to negotiate factor, it would only require a showing that a significant number of participants individually had the required bargaining power. And, the Callan court found that a plan was still a top hat plan despite including some non-management personnel with little, if any, bargaining power. The First Circuit in Alexander also expressed “grave doubts” that even “collective” bargaining power of all plan participants is a necessary prerequisite to finding a select group.

The ‘Primarily’ Requirement

The statutory exemptions state that a top hat plan must be maintained “primarily for the purpose of providing deferred compensation for a select group….” Thus, a plan sponsor can argue that as long as a plan covers primarily members of a Select Group, it should be able to cover a few other employees without jeopardizing its top hat status. As noted above, however, the DOL has stated in its recent amicus brief and an earlier Advisory Opinion that it believes “primarily” refers to the purpose of the plan (e.g., the provision of deferred compensation) and not the composition of the group of plan participants. ³⁰DOL Amicus Brief at 17-18; see also DOL Adv. Op. 90-14A, n.1 (May 8, 1990).

By applying the term “primarily” to the purpose of the plan rather than the employees covered, the DOL position is that all covered employees must be members of a Select Group in order for a plan to qualify as a top hat plan. In support of this interpretation, the DOL’s amicus brief cites admittedly sparse legislative history that describes the top hat provision as being intended for top executives and gives an example of stock plans established solely for the officers of a corporation. ³¹DOL Amicus Brief at 19-20; see, e.g., H.R. Rep. No. 93-1280, at 296 (1974) (Conf. Rep.) (“the labor fiduciary rules do not apply to an unfunded plan primarily devoted to providing deferred compensation for a select group of management or highly compensated employees. For example, if a ‘phantom stock’ or ‘shadow stock’ plan were to be established solely for the officers of a corporation, it would not be covered by the labor fiduciary rules”); H.R. Rep. No. 93-533, at 4656 (1974) (Conf. Rep.) (“Title I would cover all private employee benefit plans under Commerce Clause jurisdiction except … Unfunded deferred compensation schemes of top executives.”). Prior to this amicus brief, the Second Circuit rejected this reasoning in Demery, stating that a plan would not be disqualified from top hat status simply because a “very small number” of plan participants were not members of the Select Group. Several district courts have followed this reasoning as well. ³²See Tolbert (stating “that a small number of participants are not ‘high ranking’ is not dispositive of the top hat issue”); Callan, Fishman, Carrabba, and Belka. It will be interesting to see if and how courts address the amicus brief on this issue going forward.

Plan Language

Another factor in the Select Group analysis is a plan’s language regarding purpose and eligibility. Plan documents often contain a specific provision stating an intent that the plan qualify as a “top hat” plan. While courts engaged in the Select Group analysis have stopped to note such provisions or even include the plan document itself as a factor in the top hat plan analysis, ³³See Bakri
v. Venture Mfg. Co., No. 3-:03-CV-405 (S.D. Ohio Oct. 31, 2005), rev’d on other grounds, 473 F.3d 677 (6th Cir. 2007) (stating that “[i]n making its determination... the court must look first to the plan documents to determine if the Plan is unfunded and is primarily for the purpose of providing deferred compensation for a select group of employees.”) the overall impact of these provisions on the analysis seems negligible. Most courts have looked beyond such language of intent and focused primarily on the actual coverage of the plan. ³⁴Id. at *3 (stating that “the mere fact that [the company] intended the plan to be a ‘top hat’ plan does not necessarily satisfy the requirement that it is a ‘top hat’ plan…”).

Burden of Proof

If a participant challenges a plan’s top hat status, several courts have held that the employer has the burden of proving that the plan qualifies as a top hat plan. ³⁵See, e.g., Daft v. Advest, Inc., 658 F.3d 583, 597 (6th Cir. 2011); In re IT Group
, Inc.; Alexander
v. Brigham and Women’s Physicians Org., Inc., 467 F. Supp. 2d 136, 142 (D. Mass. 2006); Carrabba. At least one court—Carrabba— has stated that ERISA is a remedial statute to be liberally construed in favor of participants, so that exemptions should be confined to their narrow purpose.