Eighth Circuit Affirms Exclusion of Undisclosed Damages Auditor and Summary Judgment for Employer in ERISA Delinquent-Contribution Suit

In Board of Trustees of the Iron Workers St. Louis District Council Pension Fund Trust v. Barnhart Crane & Rigging Co., No. 25-1497, 2026 WL 2016237 (8th Cir. July 13, 2026), Union fund trustees and three affiliated local unions sued Barnhart Crane & Rigging Co. under ERISA and the Labor Management Relations Act, alleging that Barnhart failed to make required contributions to the unions and trust funds for covered work performed by its employees within the plaintiffs’ territorial jurisdiction. The complaint pleaded four breach-of-contract counts, one tied to the district council trust funds and one for each of the three local collective bargaining agreements. The district court granted Barnhart partial summary judgment on the Local 321 count on the ground that Barnhart was not a party or signatory to the Local 321 agreement, granted summary judgment on the remaining counts for lack of admissible evidence of damages, and granted in part Barnhart’s motion to exclude the testimony of the plaintiffs’ auditor, Bradley Soderstrom.

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the exclusion and summary judgment rulings and dismissed the portion of the appeal challenging the attorneys’ fee award for lack of jurisdiction. Reviewing the exclusion for abuse of discretion, the court observed that the district court had excluded Soderstrom’s audit reports and testimony on two independent grounds: that Soderstrom offered undisclosed expert opinion in violation of Rule 26(a), and that his damages calculations rested on speculative assumptions unsupported by the evidence. Because the plaintiffs challenged only the disclosure ground on appeal and offered no challenge to the methodology ground, the court affirmed the exclusion on the unchallenged basis alone and did not reach the plaintiffs’ arguments regarding Soderstrom’s status as an expert witness.

Reviewing the grant of summary judgment de novo, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ contention that Barnhart’s business records, standing alone, could prove damages without expert testimony. The court explained that the records the plaintiffs identified consisted of voluminous spreadsheet and remittance data that required explanation before a jury could discern whether they established an entitlement to damages, noting that Soderstrom himself had produced three versions of his audit report. Because the plaintiffs relied exclusively on the excluded audits and identified no other avenue from which damages could be calculated, they could not carry their burden of proving damages, and summary judgment was proper on Counts 1, 2, and 4. The court concluded that the same evidentiary deficiency was fatal to the Local 321 count and affirmed summary judgment on that count on the damages ground as well, declining to reach whether Barnhart had a contractual obligation to Local 321 or its trusts.

Finally, the court held that it lacked jurisdiction over the fee challenge. The district court had determined that a fee award was warranted under ERISA but had not set an amount, and the plaintiffs conceded in their reply brief that the issue was not ripe. The court accordingly dismissed that portion of the appeal.

Judge Erickson concurred separately to explain that, in his view, even reaching the merits of the disclosure issue, the district court acted within its discretion in treating Soderstrom as an expert under Rule 702 and in excluding his reports and testimony under Rule 37 for the plaintiffs’ failure to disclose him as an expert under Rule 26(a)(2).