Halline Overby, an annuitant in a retirement trust fund operated by National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), and his wife Paulette Overby brought suit in district court seeking a declaration that a purported amendment to the trust plan which would have rendered Paulette Overby ineligible to receive benefits under the plan as a surviving spouse was not properly adopted and is therefore inoperative. The district court found that the trustees of the plan had not submitted the amendment to the fund’s actuaries for an evaluation and estimate of its cost, as required by the governing provisions of the plan, and therefore held that the amendment was not properly adopted. NALC appeals, arguing that the district court erred both in its findings of fact and in its conclusions of law. Upon review, for the reasons more fully set forth below, we hold that the district court committed no reversible error in either its factual determinations or in its conclusions of law. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.

U. S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
February 26, 2010
Halline Overby v. Natl Assn of Letter Carriers