⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The Ninth Circuit hears oral argument in Klawonn versus Board of Directors for the Motion Picture Industry Pension Plans. These are cross-appeals. Patricia Klawonn, who brought the case as the representative of a certified class of plan participants, challenges the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the pension plan's board. The board defends that ruling, and has also filed what it calls a conditional cross-appeal, asking the Ninth Circuit to undo the order certifying the class if the summary judgment ruling does not stand. At the heart of the case is whether the plan's fiduciaries breached their duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act—ERISA—by following an allegedly imprudent investment process that led to losses, and whether those losses are sufficient to support liability. The plan in question is an individual account plan for the motion picture industry, governed by a board with equal union and employer representation. According to the appellant, the plan lost roughly five hundred million dollars, or about ten percent of total assets, over a decade by allocating too heavily to alternative investments and underperforming its benchmark. The district court rejected the appellant's attempt to infer an imprudent process from the plan's underperformance, calling that underperformance too slight to support the inference. It then held that the absence of evidence of a loss caused by imprudence resolved the case, and granted summary judgment without taking the breach question any further. The court separately held that Klawonn's claims for forward-looking relief were moot, because she had retired and taken her money out of the plan. The panel must decide whether the court applied the correct legal standards for breach, loss, and forward-looking relief under ERISA — and, if it disturbs the judgment, whether the class should have been certified at all.

Klawonn v. Board of Directors for the Motion Picture Industry Pension Plans (No. 25-2874) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, argued July 10, 2026.