192
OCTOBER TERM, 1997
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit
No. 96-370. Argued November 10, 1997—Decided December 15, 1997
Under the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980 (MPPAA or Act), employers who withdraw from underfunded multiemployer pension plans must ordinarily pay "withdrawal liability." 29 U. S. C. § 1381(a). The MPPAA allows employers to discharge that obligation by making a series of periodic payments. §§ 1399(c)(1)(C), (c)(3). The Act directs the plan's trustees to set an installment schedule and demand payment "[a]s soon as practicable" after the employer's withdrawal. § 1399(b)(1). If the employer fails to pay according to the schedule, the plan may, at its option, invoke a statutory acceleration provision. § 1399(c)(5). Plan fiduciaries "adversely affected by the act or omission of any party under" the MPPAA may also sue to collect the unpaid debt, § 1451(a)(1), within the longer of two limitations periods: "6 years after the date on which the cause of action arose," § 1451(f)(1), or "3 years after the earliest date on which the plaintiff acquired or should have acquired actual knowledge of the existence of such cause of action," § 1451(f)(2).
Petitioner Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund (Fund) is a multiemployer plan for laundry workers. Respondents Ferbar Corporation and Stephen Barnes (collectively, Ferbar) owned laundries and contributed to the Fund for several years, but ceased such contributions in March 1985. On December 12, 1986, the Fund's trustees demanded payment of Ferbar's withdrawal liability, which they calculated as $45,570.80. The trustees informed Ferbar that the company could satisfy its obligation by paying $345.50 per month for 240 months, beginning February 1, 1987. Ferbar has never made any payments. On February 9, 1993, the Fund filed this action seeking enforcement of Ferbar's unpaid withdrawal liability. The District Court granted Ferbar summary judgment on statute of limitations grounds. Even if § 1451(f)(1)'s six-year "accrual" rule applied, the District Court reasoned, the trustees filed suit eight days too late, for the six-year period began to run on February 1, 1987, the date Ferbar missed its first payment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed on different reasoning—specifically, that the six-year period began to run on the date Ferbar withdrew from
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