The company ignored the lawsuit – and the court made it pay for that too
A South Dakota masonry company owes over $1 million after walking away from a multiemployer pension plan and ignoring the lawsuit that followed.
On March 26, 2026, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. entered a default judgment against West River Masonry, Inc. in favor of the Bricklayers & Trowel Trades International Pension Fund, ordering the company to pay $1,061,775.49 in unpaid withdrawal liability, interest, liquidated damages, and legal costs – with interest continuing to accrue at 15% per year on the unpaid withdrawal liability until it is paid.
The case lays out what can go wrong when an employer exits a multiemployer pension plan and does not follow through on the financial obligations that come with it.
West River Masonry, a company in the masonry and concrete industry, had been contributing to the pension fund under a collective bargaining agreement with Local Union 1 Minnesota/North Dakota/South Dakota. Those contributions were tied to the hours worked by its employees in covered employment. At the end of 2023, the company stopped participating in the plan. Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, that move triggered a withdrawal liability – essentially, the employer's share of the plan's unfunded vested benefits.
An actuary calculated that liability at $867,846. The pension fund notified West River in December 2023 and set up a payment schedule. West River missed payments due...
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