DYLAN RUDOLPH and JOSEPH FAUCHER, September 29, 2022 Over the past several weeks, a single law firm, Miller Shah, LLP, has filed nearly a dozen lawsuits against fiduciaries of defined contribution plans that offer the BlackRock LifePath Index target date funds (“BlackRock Funds”). The cases represent a shift in approach relative to earlier waves of […]
Dylan D. Rudolph
DYLAN D. RUDOLPH and ROBERT R. GOWER, July, 2021 The uptick in lawsuits now commonly referred to as “excessive fee” fiduciary breach litigation began on September 11, 2006, when a St. Louis firm, Schlichter Bogard & Denton, filed its initial tranche of lawsuits against the fiduciaries of multiple large corporate 401(k) plans. In the fifteen […]
CLARISSA A. KANG and DYLAN D. RUDOLPH, February, 2020 On February 26, 2020, the Supreme Court settled a split among federal circuit courts of appeal regarding what it means to have actual knowledge of an alleged breach of fiduciary duty sufficient to begin the running of a three-year period to file suit on the […]
JOSEPH C. FAUCHER and DYLAN D. RUDOLPH, January 27, 2020 For many years, courts have wrestled with the standards that apply to a fiduciary’s decision to offer stock of the sponsor company as an investment option in the company’s 401(k) plan. The struggle arose from two arguably contradictory provisions in ERISA. One provision encouraged […]
JOSEPH C. FAUCHER and DYLAN D. RUDOLPH, February, 2019 This article was first published by the Journal of Pension Benefits: Issues in Administration, Design, Funding, and Compliance, Autumn 2018, Vol. 26, No. 1. Although the viability of arbitration rather than litigation in ERISA fiduciary breach claims remains to be seen, there are several considerations for employers who […]
JOSEPH C. FAUCHER and DYLAN D. RUDOLPH, February, 2019 In offering their own company stock as a plan investment option, retirement plan fiduciaries are subject to the same duty of prudence that governs the selection, retention and removal of any other investments. Before 2014, litigation against plan fiduciaries that offered their companies’ stock as an […]
DYLAN D. RUDOLPH and BRIAN D. MURRAY, October, 2018 In recent years, the number of lawsuits filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) has grown exponentially. So, too, has the typical value of claims asserted in those lawsuits. With the increased risk and expense of litigation, employee benefit plan sponsors and […]
DYLAN D. RUDOLPH, August 2016 — This summer, the Ninth Circuit quieted any uncertainty about the viability of claims for procedural penalties against plan administrators based on claimants’ requests, under a Plan’s benefit claims procedures, for documents related to their benefit claim. In Lee v. ING Groep, N.V., No. 14-15848, — F.3d — (9th Cir. […]
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