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Mealey's ERISA

  • March 26, 2025

    Ex-NFL Player To 5th Circuit: Dismiss Fee Award Appeal In Disability Benefits Row

    NEW ORLEANS — Arguing in part that “[i]t would be patently unfair to reverse [his] benefits award while citing his failures to properly appeal and then excuse the Plan’s own failures to properly appeal the Fee Award,” a former National Football League player filed a motion asking the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to dismiss the plan’s appeal of an award of more than $1.25 million in attorney fees and costs.

  • March 25, 2025

    Another ERISA Drug Costs Complaint Dismissed For Lack Of Standing

    MINNEAPOLIS — Ruling that the plaintiffs lack standing because they “are unable to show concrete individual harm, causation, and redressability,” a Minnesota federal judge on March 24 dismissed the initial complaint without prejudice in a putative Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action over alleged mismanagement of prescription drug benefits.

  • March 24, 2025

    Affirming Audit Order, 2nd Circuit Says Conduct Shows Adoption Of Agreements

    NEW YORK — In a March 21 summary order saying in part that the record shows that the appellants “engaged in conduct demonstrating” that they adopted two “Master Contracts with respect to all employees performing covered work,” a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel upheld a summary judgment order granting multiemployer funds’ request for an audit in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act case.

  • March 24, 2025

    $4M Deal Proposed To Settle Lawsuit Challenging ESOP Transaction

    PEORIA, Ill. — An employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) lawsuit would be resolved on a class basis for $4 million, according to a motion for preliminary settlement approval that the named plaintiff filed in Illinois federal court; the development comes as briefing remains suspended in an interlocutory appeal concerning whether the plaintiff can pursue planwide relief in a representative capacity given that class certification was denied due to intraclass conflict.

  • March 21, 2025

    1st Circuit Affirms That ERISA Preempts State Law Wrongful Death Claim

    BOSTON — Rejecting the appellant’s argument that a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision “overrules prior law and requires reinstatement of” a wrongful death claim asserted under Massachusetts state law, a First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed summary judgment for an insurer, ruling the Employee Retirement Income Security Act preempts the claim “as a matter of law.”

  • March 20, 2025

    Consent Order Worth More Than $20M Resolves Suit Against TPA Of Many Plans

    MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin federal judge on March 19 signed a consent order and judgment under which the third-party administrator (TPA) for hundreds of self-funded employee welfare benefit plans will “pay or cause to be paid at least $20,250,000,” plus civil penalties, to resolve a suit in which the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) challenged adverse benefit determinations regarding hospital emergency services claims and urinary drug screening claims.

  • March 20, 2025

    Insurer To 4th Circuit: Overturn Ruling In Long Covid Disability Benefits Case

    RICHMOND, Va. — Arguing that the lower court improperly applied de novo review and wrongly concluded that the claimant showed that she is disabled from working as an engineer because of long COVID symptoms, an insurer urged the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reverse a judgment that the claimant is owed past-due long-term disability (LTD) benefits.

  • March 19, 2025

    Judge Rebuffs Appointments Challenge In ERISA Benefits Suit Over Spinoff

    PHILADELPHIA — After conducting a bench trial in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action over corporate restructuring that affected retirement benefits and issuing a mixed December ruling as to liability, a Pennsylvania federal judge on March 18 denied a motion in which the defendants sought emergency relief regarding his appointment of “an independent technical adviser on ERISA” and a special master as to remedies.

  • March 19, 2025

    Citing Cooperation Provision, Judge Rules For Insurer In LTD Benefits Row

    NEW BERN, N.C. — Noting that briefing focused on a preexisting condition provision, a North Carolina federal judge granted summary judgment in favor of an insurer that denied long term disability (LTD) benefits to a claimant who had multiple sclerosis on the other ground the insurer cited in its denial, violation of a claimant cooperation provision.

  • March 18, 2025

    Settlement With $8.75M Payment Proposed In ERISA Suit Over 401(k) Management

    SAN FRANCISCO — Plaintiffs who sued over allegedly imprudent management of a 401(k) plan have moved in California federal court to certify a settlement class and to request preliminary approval of a deal that would include an $8.75 million payment and other relief.

  • March 17, 2025

    Home Depot To High Court: Don’t Tackle ERISA Burden-Shifting Issue

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Responding to a U.S. Supreme Court request regarding to a certiorari petition that asks whether “burden-shifting applies to the element of causation under” part of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, The Home Depot Inc. and related parties argue in a March 14 brief that the challenged ruling was correct, that “the burden of proof makes no difference to the bottom-line result” here and that the issue “is relatively unimportant.”

  • March 17, 2025

    Drug Costs Under Employee Health Plan Are Focus Of Another ERISA Suit

    NEW YORK — In an Employee Retirement Income Security Act fiduciary duty complaint similar to those filed in two other putative class cases, former and current JPMorgan Chase & Co. employees sued the company and related defendants over the prescription drug part of its health plan, alleging that mismanagement is evident from prices paid to pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) “for many generic drugs that are widely available at drastically lower prices.”

  • March 14, 2025

    COVID Test Payment Suit Properly Tossed For Not Seeking Administrative Remedies

    NEW YORK — A panel of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a judgment of a New York federal court, which dismissed a lawsuit by a medical practice seeking reimbursement for COVID-19 testing for the members of a health care workers’ union because the practice failed to establish that it had exhausted its administrative remedies in attempting to obtain payment.

  • March 14, 2025

    $299,000 Deal Gets Initial OK In ERISA Suit Over Plan’s Tobacco Surcharge

    CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge granted preliminary approval to a $299,000 class settlement that would resolve an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over annual $1,152 surcharges imposed on about 431 health plan participants who use tobacco.

  • March 13, 2025

    Judge Rules That Claimant With POTS Is Entitled To Disability Benefits

    CHICAGO — Saying that many of the arguments an insurer made were “so weak as to call into question the good faith of its litigation position,” an Illinois federal judge overturned its determinations that postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) was an excluded pre-existing condition and that the claimant is not totally disabled from her own occupation, ruling that the human resources manager is entitled to long-term disability (LTD) benefits.

  • March 12, 2025

    Defendants Win Compensation Row; Judge Rules Plan A Bonus One Exempt From ERISA

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Finding that the plan at the center of a compensation dispute “is a bonus plan exempt from” the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a North Carolina federal judge granted summary judgment in favor of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. and other defendants in a putative class action.

  • March 12, 2025

    Judge Finds Factual Issue In LTD Benefits Calculation Dispute

    KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Calling the outcome “relatively uncommon,” a Tennessee federal judge denied competing motions for summary judgment and judgment on the record in a truck driver’s Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over calculation of his long-term disability (LTD) benefits.

  • March 12, 2025

    5th Circuit Affirms Ruling For Employer In Pension, Shift-Differential Row

    NEW ORLEANS — In an unpublished per curiam opinion, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act preempts a Louisiana Wage Payment Act (LWPA) claim concerning a lump-sum pension payment and that summary judgment for an employer on a claim concerning shift-differential pay was appropriate.

  • March 12, 2025

    9th Circuit Pauses Appeal That Seeks Revival Of Custom TDF Claims

    SAN FRANCISCO — Oral argument that was tentatively set for April 4 has been vacated in an appeal seeking revival of Employee Retirement Income Security Act claims concerning custom target-date funds (TDFs), with the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ordering abeyance pending a decision in a different appeal.

  • March 11, 2025

    Judge Upholds Denial Of Over $1.4M In Severance Benefits In ERISA Row

    HOUSTON — Asserting that two U.S. circuit courts of appeals “have read the same Plan language differently and have reached different results on similar claims,” a Texas federal judge upheld denial of $1,403,571 in severance benefits in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case that involved a change of control and disputes over a “good reason” clause and the correct standard of review.

  • March 11, 2025

    9th Circuit To Consider Bid To Revive Custom TDF Claims In Imprudence Row

    SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals tentatively set oral argument for April 4 in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act appeal seeking revival of claims concerning custom target-date funds (TDFs), where amicus curiae the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America supports affirmance.

  • March 11, 2025

    Consolidation Bid Yields Coordination Order In ERISA Suits Challenging 2016 Deal

    NEW YORK — A New York federal judge declined to consolidate related Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuits challenging the same July 2016 Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) deal but directed that the cases — one filed by plan participants in 2022 and the other filed the U.S. Department of Labor in 2024 — proceed on the same schedule.

  • March 10, 2025

    2nd Circuit Sets Argument In Appeal Over Timeliness Of ERISA Pension Case

    NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has set March 20 oral argument in an appeal seeking revival of a putative class action where all claims in a joint and survivor annuity (JSA) dispute over allegedly outdated mortality tables were ruled time-barred; the appeal has drawn input from amici curiae the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the American Benefits Council, the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) and the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America.

  • March 07, 2025

    Financial Advisers’ Stay, Intervention Bids Fail In Compensation Row

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. financial advisers who said they are unwilling members of a putative class in a compensation dispute were denied permission to intervene after both sides opposed their motion, with the docket showing that a North Carolina federal judge issued an oral order.

  • March 07, 2025

    5th Circuit Affirms Refusal To Impose Statutory ERISA Penalty In Plan Documents Row

    NEW ORLEANS — In an unpublished March 6 per curiam opinion saying in part that the appellant didn’t “establish that the district court abused its discretion in” determinations made following a bench trial, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed discovery and other rulings for the sponsor and administrator of an Employee Retirement Income Security Act medical benefits plan in a documents dispute.