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        No. 23-1209 · October Term 2025

        M & K Employee Solutions, Inc. v. Trustees of IAM Nat. Pension

        Decided May 21, 2026, 9–0 · From the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

        Question

        When a pension plan calculates how much a departing employer owes “as of the end of the plan year,” must the plan use the financial assumptions it had already adopted by that date, or can it use new assumptions created after that date if they are based on information that was available at year-end?

        Facts of the case

        M&K Employee Solutions operated three facilities that participated in the IAM National Pension Fund, a retirement plan jointly funded by multiple employers whose workers were represented by the International Association of Machinists union. In late 2017, the Fund’s actuary valued the plan’s unfunded obligations at about $448 million. Shortly after, in January 2018, the actuary met with the Fund’s trustees and decided to change key financial assumptions used to calculate how much departing employers owed the Fund. Most importantly, they lowered the assumed investment return rate from 7.5% to 6.5%, a change that would significantly increase the bills for employers leaving the plan. M&K had already begun pulling out of the Fund when two of its facilities stopped participating in 2017. When M&K completely withdrew in 2018, the Fund calculated what M&K owed based on financial data from December 31, 2017, but used the new assumptions adopted in January 2018. This resulted in a withdrawal liability bill of over $6 million. Ohio Magnetics, another company in the Fund, faced a similar situation when it withdrew in mid-2018 and received a bill for about $447,000 calculated the same way.…

        From Oyez.

        The Court's vote 9–0

        Majority: Ketanji Brown Jackson, John G. Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett