Atlanta Dentists To Repay $92,979 To Profit Sharing Plan

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

Atlanta, Georgia - The owners of Hodges, King & Reudelhuber, D.D.S., P.A. have agreed to pay $92,979 in contributions and interest for four employees who were improperly excluded from participating in the professional association's profit sharing plan, according to a settlement obtained on Tues., November 6, by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The restitution will come from an offset of the individual plan accounts of the defendants, Drs. Dan M. Hodges, Paul M. King and David L. Reudelhuber, all of whom are trustees of the plan.

The professional association is a dental practice that sponsored a pension plan until June 1997, when the pension plan was merged with a profit sharing plan. As of December 2000, the profit sharing plan had 10 participants and $3,651,331 in assets.

A lawsuit simultaneously filed with the settlement alleges that the defendants failed to allow two dental hygienists and two former dental assistants to participate in both the pension and profit sharing plans from 1993 to 1997. In September 1997, the defendants adopted a resolution excluding any dental hygienist paid on a commission basis from participating in the plan.

The lawsuit alleges that defendants violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act by excluding, from participating in the plans, the four employees who met the eligibility requirement of 1000 hours of service under the plans' governing documents, by failing to maintain sufficient records of hours worked by employees potentially eligible to participate under the plans' provisions, and by failing to act solely in the plan participants' interests.

"The case exemplifies our commitment to protect workers' hard-earned benefits," said Howard Marsh, Atlanta regional director for the Labor Department's Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration. "Workers can help us protect their benefits by contacting our office at 404.562.2156 if they have questions or suspect abuse of their pension, health or other benefit plans."

The settlement resulted from an investigation by the Atlanta Regional Office of the Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration. The consent order was entered in federal district court in Atlanta.

(Chao v. Hodges et al
Civil Action No. 1-01-CV-2881)

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Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.