Hartford Fire Insurance v. Trustees of the Construction Industry

OPINION

By the Court,

Gibbons, J.:

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has certified two questions of law to this court concerning various trustees’ attempts to collect unpaid contributions owed to employee-benefit trust funds. This matter arose when a public works subcontractor failed to contribute to employee-benefit trust funds, which were created as part of a collective bargaining agreement between the subcontractor and its employees’ union. After the subcontractor failed to pay employee-benefit contributions owed to the trusts, the trusts’ trustees sued, in federal court, the general…