Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, PENSION AND BENEFIT PLANS—6th Cir.: Union-trustees denied preliminary injunction to remove trustees who voted with employer-trustees, (Aug 1, 2025)

By Ronald Miller, J.D.

The plaintiffs point to no binding authority suggesting that entrenchment is per se proof of irreparable harm.

In a suit seeking the removal of two union-appointed trustees who have sided with the employer-appointed trustees, a union was denied a motion for preliminary injunction removing the trustees because there was no showing of irreparable harm, ruled the Sixth Circuit. The two union-appointed trustees have voted with the employer-appointed trustees to make procedural changes that the union contends have caused fiduciary-duty violations. Because the district court properly concluded that the plaintiffs failed to establish irreparable harm, their request for a preliminary injunction failed on that prong alone. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed on appeal (International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council No. 6 v. Smith, No. 24-3282 (6th Cir. July 31, 2025)).

The fund is a multi-employer welfare benefit plan governed by the Taft-Hartley Act. The union and contributing employers created and maintained the fund to provide health and welfare benefits to employees represented by the union. Sixteen trustees manage the fund, half affiliated with the union and half with the contributing employers, along with “neutral persons.”

The trust agreement includes procedures specifying how trustees must be appointed and how they may be removed. The trustees may also amend the trust agreement by a two-thirds vote of those trustees present.

Fund amendments. The claims of the plaintiff-trustees arise from their discontent over certain fund amendments proposed by two union-appointed trustees and approved by the employer-trustee defendants. Tensions began to rise in January 2021, when a business manager sought to appoint a new union trustee because the former representative had taken a leave of absence. Thereafter, the trustee resumed his position. The business manager sought a legal opinion from the fund’s counsel but found that they had been unilaterally fired, and a new counsel retained.

Over the course of the next several board meetings, the union-appointed defendant-trustees proposed several amendments to the trust agreement with which plaintiff-trustees did not agree. Some of these amendments directly benefited the defendant-trustees, like one that would provide continued health-insurance coverage to retired union trustees at no cost. They also proposed an amendment that would suspend dental coverage under the health care plan and proposed an amendment to the trust agreement’s removal language. Prior to the amendment, union trustees could be removed for just cause by a three-fourths vote of the union trustees, and employer trustees could be removed for just cause by the same vote of the employer trustees. Under the change, any trustee could be removed for just cause by a three-fourths vote of all trustees, regardless of their appointing authorities.

Internal charges. The union business manager sent both union defendant-trustees letters requesting that they resign from their positions as union trustees. Neither resigned. Thereafter, the business manager filed internal union charges against both. A union board sustained the charges against both union defendant-trustees and directed that they each immediately be removed from the fund. They again refused to resign, so a second set of internal charges was filed. The charges were again sustained.

The union defendant-trustees resigned from the union, but continued to receive retiree benefits due to an amendment the trustees had passed, which allowed participants who were no longer union members to receive coverage under the fund’s welfare plan.

Removal as trustees. Believing that the union defendant-trustees continued to unlawfully hold themselves out as trustees and administer the fund, the plaintiffs filed this suit seeking to remove them as trustees. The plaintiffs allege that certain amended provisions of the trust agreement improperly entrench the sitting trustees in violation of ERISA. Further, the plaintiffs claimed that the defendant-trustees engaged in unlawful self-dealing prohibited by ERISA § 406(b).

The employer-trustee defendants moved to dismiss the plaintiffs’ complaint against them for failure to state a claim, which the district court granted.

The plaintiffs also moved for a preliminary injunction removing the union defendant-trustees as fund trustees. The district court denied plaintiffs’ request. The plaintiffs appeal both the denial of their request for injunctive relief and the district court’s dismissal order.

Preliminary injunction. Because the district court properly concluded that the plaintiffs failed to establish irreparable harm, their request for a preliminary injunction fails on that prong alone. To establish that they will face irreparable harm in the absence of injunctive relief, plaintiffs must show that they are at risk of suffering some harm that “is not fully compensable by monetary damages.”

Irreparable harm. The plaintiffs have not shown why monetary damages would not adequately redress their purported harms. Their first purported harm—trustee self-dealing—flows from allegations that the two defendant-trustees previously voted in their own interests at the fund’s expense. But the plaintiffs were unable to identify any upcoming votes or other fund obligations where any fears of the defendants’ misconduct would be realized.

Each of the identified self-dealing harms would have fiscal ramifications. And the plaintiffs have not explained why post-litigation damages for these expenses would not sufficiently remedy any such harm. More important, each of these actions happened in the past, and past harm cannot serve as the basis for injunctive relief.

The plaintiffs’ second alleged harm also failed. Here, the plaintiffs contended that the defendants’ misconduct prevented the “properly serving” union trustees from fully exercising their fiduciary duties on behalf of the fund. Again, the plaintiffs could not explain why money would not redress this harm—referring to their inability to stop payments to the defendants. Nor could the plaintiffs point to any upcoming votes where this alleged harm might actually impair the plaintiffs’ fiduciary responsibilities.

Entrenchment. Lastly, the plaintiffs contended that entrenchment itself caused irreparable harm. Entrenchment is a tool used by a trustee to secure a virtually permanent position on the board. According to the plaintiffs, a trustee’s entrenchment renders himself unaccountable to the authority he was appointed to represent. And such self-serving conduct then violates the trustee’s fiduciary obligation imposed by ERISA.

The district court rejected the plaintiffs’ assertion that the removal amendment, for which the defendant-trustees joined the employer-appointed trustees in voting, showed entrenchment. The appeals court agreed.

The plaintiffs point to no binding authority suggesting that entrenchment is per se proof of irreparable harm. Thus, regardless of whether their allegations mount a plausible theory of entrenchment, they do not establish any immediate irreparable harm that the plaintiffs would suffer.

Accordingly, the appeals court found no abuse of the district court’s discretion in denying the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction.

The case is No. 24-3282.

Judge: Davis, S.

Attorneys: Diana Robinson (Paoff, Robinson & Widman) for International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council No. 6. Allen S. Kinzer (Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease) for Warren T. Smith and Dana Clark. Evan T. Priestle (Taft Stettinius & Hollister) for Jeremy Turi, Joe Conley, James Eck, Chad Hudepohl, Kyle Young, and Jeff Qvick.

Companies: International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council No. 6

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