ANGEL L. GARRETT, August 27, 2020 A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reminds plan fiduciaries once again of the importance of including claims and appeals procedures and administrative exhaustion language in their plans. See Wallace v. Oakwood Healthcare, Inc., 954 F.3d 879 (6th Cir. 2020). Often, plan fiduciaries […]
ERISA Litigation
JOSEPH C. FAUCHER and BRIAN D. MURRAY, June 8, 2020 On June 1, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Thole v. U.S. Bank, N.A., 2020 WL 2814294 (2020). The majority opinion — written by Justice Kavanaugh — is likely to have a significant impact on ERISA litigation involving defined benefit plans. […]
JOSEPH C. FAUCHER and BRIAN D. MURRAY, February, 2020 401(k) plan sponsors routinely offer stable value funds as conservative investment alternatives for their participants. Insurance companies that manage stable value funds invest in fixed income instruments, such as short- and intermediate-term government and corporate bonds and mortgage-backed securities. The funds are insured, so investors […]
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 […]
CLARISSA A. KANG, September, 2019 Last month, the Ninth Circuit held in favor of retirement plan fiduciaries to require arbitration of a participant’s claims for breach of fiduciary duty on an individual basis, rather than on a class action basis. Dorman v. Charles Schwab Corp., — F.3d –, 2019 WL 3926990 (9th Cir. 2019). In […]
ANGEL L. GARRETT and BRYAN J. CARD, August, 2019 A new wave of putative class-action lawsuits filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) has emerged onto the scene alleging that companies are using outdated mortality tables from the 1970s and 1980s in calculating alternative forms of benefits under defined benefit […]
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 […]
JOSEPH C. FAUCHER AND DYLAN R. RUDOLPH, DECEMBER 13, 2017 This article analyzes the Dudenhoeffer pleading standard and “stock drop” cases. It was first published by Wolters Kluwer in the Journal of Pension Benefits, Spring 2017, Vol. 24, No. 3. I. Introduction Before 2014, most of the federal Courts of Appeals applied a “presumption of prudence” when […]
CLARISSA A. KANG, January 2017 The fiduciaries of retirement plans for 12 major universities have been hit with coordinated lawsuits asserting breaches of fiduciary duty arising from allegedly excessive fees for administrative and investment management services, imprudent selection and monitoring of recordkeepers and investment options, underperforming plan investment options, and a “paralyzing” array of […]
FREEMAN L. LEVINRAD, October 2016 On September 26, 2016, the Fifth Circuit, in Whitley v. BP, P.L.C. (“Whitley”), 2016 WL 5387678 (2016), emphasized that conclusory statements will not satisfy the pleading standard for complaints alleging breaches of fiduciary duty related to retirement plans’ investment in employer stock (commonly known as stock-drop cases), as established in […]
JAHIZ NOEL AGARD, September 2016 For those interested in the law of ERISA forum selection clauses, 2016 has been a year to remember. The majority of courts to address this issue have ruled in favor of enforcing forum selection clauses. However, going against the trend, two federal district courts recently determined that forum selection clauses […]
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. […]
JOE FAUCHER, June 2016 An unmistakable trend in the world of employee benefit plan litigation is underway, and that trend is decidedly in favor of plaintiffs. The trend has manifested itself in several ways. For example, several years ago, courts routinely entered early dismissals of cases alleging that very large companies breached their fiduciary duties […]
JOSEPH C. FAUCHER, April 2016 – Citing the 1977 animated TV special It’s Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a decision that might have a significant impact on who has the burden of proof in ERISA benefit claims. In Estate of Barton v. ADT Security Services Pension Plan, […]
ANGEL L. GARRETT, April 2016 – As we previously reported, on May 18, 2015, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in favor of the plan participants in Tibble v. Edison International, 135 S. Ct. 1823 (2015). In October 2014, the Supreme Court granted the plaintiffs’ petition for writ of certiorari to solely address whether […]
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