Ninth Circuit Affirms Knowing and Voluntary Waiver of 401(k) Claims but Reverses Summary Judgment on Pension Plan Claims After Finding Triable Issue as to Whether Eligibility Amendment Was Backdated

In Raya v. Barka, No. 25-2394, __ F.4th __, 2026 WL 2168772 (9th Cir. July 28, 2026), Plaintiff sued his former employer, Calbiotech, Inc., several individual defendants, and Calbiotech’s 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan and Pension Plan, asserting ERISA claims for denial of benefits, breach of fiduciary duty, and retaliation arising from the administration of both plans. Defendants counterclaimed for breach of contract, contending that Plaintiff had released his then-existing claims in a Separation Agreement and General Release in exchange for a $12,500 severance payment. The district court granted summary judgment to Defendants on the Pension Plan claims, and after a bench trial on the remaining claims, entered judgment for Defendants. Plaintiff appealed. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.

The court first addressed whether Plaintiff knowingly and voluntarily waived his remaining ERISA claims when he signed the Agreement. Reviewing the district court’s findings of fact for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo, and its evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion, the court rejected Plaintiff’s contention that the district court improperly admitted and relied on exhibits produced only two weeks before trial. The court explained that the challenged exhibits were emails to or from Plaintiff and were already in his possession during the discovery period, and that the one exhibit cited in the district court’s voluntariness analysis had been shown to Plaintiff at his deposition and included in the original set of trial exhibits. Plaintiff therefore failed to demonstrate prejudice, and the district court did not abuse its discretion.

Applying the nine non-exhaustive factors set out in Schuman v. Microchip Technology Inc., 139 F.4th 1045, 1053 (9th Cir. 2025), the court held that the district court did not err in concluding that Plaintiff’s waiver was knowing and voluntary. Before the rescission period expired, Plaintiff consulted two lawyers, one of whom referred him to an ERISA attorney who conducted a lengthy interview about Calbiotech’s retirement plans, and Plaintiff had contacted the Department of Labor with a complaint about the 401(k) Plan before signing. The court agreed that these contacts demonstrated Plaintiff’s awareness of his potential claims and his willingness to seek independent advice, even if the advice he received was not helpful. The court also rejected Plaintiff’s argument that withholding of the 401(k) Plan documents undercut the waiver, noting that Plaintiff knew he lacked those documents when he signed and requested them again that same day. The court held that Plaintiff knowingly and voluntarily waived his remaining claims, including his 401(k) Plan and ERISA retaliation claims.

The court then turned to the Pension Plan claims, which Defendants conceded fell outside the waiver because the district court had dismissed them on summary judgment before trial. Reviewing that grant de novo, the court reversed. The district court had rested its ruling on a 2008 Amendment that limited Pension Plan eligibility to seven named individuals, none of whom was Plaintiff, and concluded that Plaintiff therefore lacked standing to assert Pension Plan claims. Plaintiff argued that a triable issue existed as to whether the Amendment had been backdated, pointing to a Participant Statement showing that one of the seven named individuals, Sabreen Najeeb, did not begin her employment with Calbiotech until 2011, along with the Amendment’s absence from the documents produced to him and the Plan Administrator’s failure to rely on it when denying his enrollment request. The court explained that Defendants offered no evidence explaining why a document purportedly executed in 2008 would name a person not hired until years later, resting instead on a sworn declaration from a Calbiotech vice president and trustee asserting concurrent execution. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, the court held that a reasonable trier of fact could infer that the Amendment was backdated and that the declaration’s contrary assertion was not credible, and it reversed the summary judgment on the Pension Plan claims.

Finally, the court affirmed the district court’s denial of Plaintiff’s two motions for sanctions, reviewing for abuse of discretion. The court held that Defendants’ letter to non-party subpoena recipients, sent after the discovery cut-off had passed, did not interfere with the discovery process, and that the district court permissibly deferred and then denied the sanctions motion premised on allegedly forged 401(k) Plan documents. As to the latter, the district court credited trial testimony that an altered document had been prepared by a since-deceased individual correcting a typographical error and found that Plaintiff had not proven any intentional attempt to mislead him or conceal a claim, a finding the court held was not clearly erroneous. The court affirmed the judgment in all other respects.