The Eleventh Circuit went on to note that ERISA neither requires an employer to provide a benefit plan nor prohibits an employer from modifying the plan or even terminating nonvested benefits. However, the court went on to explain that if Seaman’s allegations were true, then Arvida violated ERISA Section 510.
According to the Eleventh Circuit, “Arvida did not change the terms of its plan; rather, it threatened to terminate its salespeople unless they agreed to become independent contractors, performing the same job but ineligible to receive the benefits previously offered to them as employees and still offered to Arvida’s remaining employees.”
Noting that Seaman was terminated for declining to work without the benefits she previously enjoyed, the court concluded that she was, “in the exact language of section 510, discharged ‘for exercising [a] right to which [she was] entitled under the provisions of an employee benefit plan.’ To excuse this action would prevent section 510 from fulfilling its congressionally intended purpose.”