The panel reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Nevada Resort Association-International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada Local 720 Pension Trust, and remanded, in an action brought by JB Viva Vegas, L.P., to challenge withdrawal liability under the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act.

The MPPAA amended the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to impose liability on employers, like JB, that withdraw from multiemployer pension plans, such as the plan administered by the Trust. But an exemption from withdrawal liability exists for employers contributing to plans that primarily cover “employees in the entertainment industry.” The panel held that, under the plain text of the statute, there is no minimum amount of entertainment work required for an individual to be an employee in the entertainment industry under the MPPAA. And even if the text were ambiguous, the best reading of the exception is that “employees in the entertainment industry” are individuals performing any amount of entertainment work. Accordingly, the panel held that the Trust’s plan primarily covered “employees in the entertainment industry” because there is no minimum entertainment-work requirement, and the majority of employees covered by the plan perform some entertainment work.

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/01/06/24-3047.pdf