The old agreement never named the predecessor - and that silence sank a 62.5% bill
A janitors' pension fund demanded a 62.5% top-up from airport cleaning contractors. A federal judge found the paperwork didn't support the claim.
The Service Employees International Union National Industry Pension Fund and its trustees sued five companies that clean Denver International Airport, saying the contractors skipped required payments into workers' retirement accounts and withheld the reports needed to tally what was owed.
On July 20, 2026, a federal judge in Washington, DC, trimmed the case. He dismissed part of it - then gave the fund a chance to rebuild the argument.
Here's the setup, because it's the part HR teams will recognize. The fund pays retirement benefits to workers whose employer signs a collective bargaining agreement, or CBA, with a local SEIU union. Participating employers owe two monthly payments: a base contribution of 40 cents per hour worked, and a supplemental contribution - tied to the fund's recovery plan - that adds 62.5% on top.
The fund said none of the five contractors paid either one.
Three of them - Flagship Facility Services, AFL Maintenance Group and Whayne & Sons Enterprises - pushed back on the 62.5% piece. They argued the fund never pleaded facts showing they owed it.
The judge agreed, and the reason is the lesson. The fund's first theory was that the contractors inherited the duty from the previous cleaning company, ISS Facility Services, whose CBA carried the top-up. But the contractors produced their own CBAs, which the court said made "no reference at all to ISS Facility Services or any prior collective bargaining agreement." The second theory - that the money was owed "as a matter of federal law" under the pension statute known as ERISA - drew an equally short response. The court called it a "mere conclusory statement" with no facts behind it.
So those supplemental-contribution claims were dismissed against the three companies. The base-contribution and reporting claims stayed, because nobody challenged them.
This is not the end. The court gave the fund until August 19, 2026, to file an amended complaint.
Why it matters to HR: this is a live risk anytime a contracted workforce changes hands. When one vendor replaces another and the same crew stays on, benefit obligations do not travel with the workers by default. If you expect a new employer to honor a predecessor's contribution terms, the CBA and any assumption language have to say so - in writing, by name. Assuming a duty exists "as a matter of federal law" was not enough to survive a motion to dismiss.
The ruling tested the pleadings, not the money. That fight continues.
