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PETERS BROADCAST ENGINEERING, INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
24 CAPITAL, LLC; JASON SANKOV; JOHN DOES,
Defendants-Appellees. |
No. 21-3849 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio at Columbus.
No. 2:20-cv-03135—Kimberly A. Jolsen, Magistrate Judge.
Argued: June 9, 2022
Decided and Filed: July 13, 2022
Before: GIBBONS, COOK, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. A federal court is empowered to adjudicate
the rights of the parties before it—with the salient constraint that it must have personal
jurisdiction over each party. After forming a contract, 24 Capital, LLC (“24 Capital”) believed
Peters Broadcast Engineering, Inc. (“Peters Broadcast”) breached their agreement. 24 Capital
received a judgment by confession in New York state court. Then Peters Broadcast brought this
suit in the Southern District of Ohio, alleging that 24 Capital and its Operations Manager, Jason
Sankov, engaged in a scheme in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations
Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. § 1962. The district court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss
for lack of personal jurisdiction. Peters Broadcast appeals, arguing the district court erred in
interpreting the RICO provision authorizing nationwide exercise of personal jurisdiction in
certain circumstances. We affirm, holding that 18 U.S.C. § 1965(b) governs service over out-of district defendants and requires that at least one defendant has minimum contacts with the forum
state. |
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DANIELLE FORMAN, NICHOLE GEORG, and CINDY
HANEY, individually and as representatives of a Class
of Participants and Beneficiaries on behalf of
TriHealth Inc. Retirement Plan,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
TRIHEALTH, INC. and TRIHEALTH 401(k) RETIREMENT
SAVINGS PLAN RETIREMENT COMMITTEE,
Defendants-Appellees. |
No. 21-3977 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio at Cincinnati.
No. 1:19-cv-00613—Matthew W. McFarland, District Judge.
Argued: June 29, 2022
Decided and Filed: July 13, 2022
Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; KETHLEDGE and READLER, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
SUTTON, Chief Judge. Under ERISA, short for the Employee Retirement Income
Security Act of 1974, those who invest other peoples’ retirement money must do so “with the
care, skill, prudence, and diligence” that a reasonable professional in the area would use. 29
U.S.C. § 1104(a)(1)(B). At issue in this case are the various ways in which the duty of prudence
applies to the investment options that a company offers to its employees for their 401(k) and
other defined-contribution plans. Precedent has overtaken some of the debates in the case. Our
recent decision in CommonSpirit largely resolves several of the plaintiffs’ claims: that their
employer TriHealth should not have offered its employees the option of investing their
retirement money in actively managed funds, that the performance of several funds was deficient
at certain points, and that the overall fees charged for the investment options were too high. But
the complaint contains one other claim not covered by CommonSpirit. The gist of it is this:
Even if a prudent investor might make available a wide range of valid investment decisions in a
given year, only an imprudent financier would offer a more expensive share when he could offer
a functionally identical share for less. The plaintiffs claim that TriHealth offered them more
expensive mutual fund shares when shares with the same investment strategy, the same
management team, and the same investments were available to their retirement plan at lower
costs. Because the plaintiffs in this last respect have stated a plausible claim that TriHealth acted
imprudently, we affirm in part and reverse in part the district court’s dismissal of their complaint
for failure to state a claim. |
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