614
Opinion of the Court
that "complete withdrawal" had occurred when operations at the Shafter plant ceased in August 1979, a date prior to the effective date of the MPPAA, and challenging the MPPAA on constitutional grounds. These cases were consolidated in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, which sua sponte ordered the parties to arbitrate the issue of whether withdrawal occurred prior to the effective date of the MPPAA.8
The arbitration took place in two phases. In the first, the arbitrator determined that Concrete Pipe had not withdrawn from the Plan prior to the effective date of the MPPAA. App. 216. In the second phase, explicitly applying the presumption of 29 U. S. C. § 1401(a)(3)(B), the arbitrator found that Concrete Pipe had failed to meet its burden of showing the actuarial assumptions and methods to be unreasonable in the aggregate. App. 400. For reasons not at issue here, the arbitrator did rule partially in Concrete Pipe's favor, and reduced the withdrawal liability from $268,168.81 to $190,465.57.
Concrete Pipe then filed a third action in the District Court, to set aside or modify the arbitrator's decision, and again raised its constitutional challenge. Id., at 406. The District Court treated Concrete Pipe's subsequent motion for summary judgment as a petition to vacate the arbitrator's award, which it denied, and granted a motion by the Plan to confirm the award. Construction Laborers Pension Trust for Southern California v. Cen-Vi-Ro Concrete Pipe
8 The District Court concluded that the effective date of the withdrawal liability provisions of the MPPAA was September 26, 1980, in reliance on the Ninth Circuit's decision in Shelter Framing Corp. v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, 705 F. 2d 1502 (1983), which held the retroactivity provision of the MPPAA unconstitutional. App. 198. The decision in Shelter Framing was reversed by this Court in Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation v. R. A. Gray & Co., 467 U. S. 717 (1984). Subsequent to this Court's decision in Gray, Congress amended the effective date of the MPPAA's withdrawal liability provisions. See 29 U. S. C. § 1461(e)(2)(a).
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