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May 22, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — Declining to dismiss a putative class action that involves several Employee Retirement Income Security Act issues that have seen much litigation recently, including how reinsurance arrangements affect the risk of fund guarantor insolvency, a Pennsylvania federal judge ruled that claims regarding a purportedly underperforming stable value fund (SVF) survive because the plaintiffs’ “meaningful benchmark” allegations are sufficient at this stage, and claims regarding use of forfeited funds survive for reasons including that the record does not yet include critical plan documents.
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May 22, 2026
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Granting a disability insurer’s motion to enforce a confidential settlement agreement in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over termination of benefits, a Tennessee federal judge found that the claimant acted in bad faith and that the insurer is entitled to “reasonable attorney fees.”
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May 22, 2026
ATLANTA — The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has scheduled oral argument for June 26 in a dispute over long-term disability (LTD) benefits that involves interpretation of the term “work,” whether passive income counts as earnings and what constitutes sufficient proof of disability; in the challenged ruling, a federal judge granted summary judgment in favor of the insurer, sustaining its objections to a report and recommendation in favor of the claimant and adopting only the parts it didn’t object to.
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May 21, 2026
NEW YORK — Urging the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to affirm denial of long-term disability (LTD) benefits for a corporate finance attorney who claimed that she became unable to do her job after her vehicle was rear-ended at a traffic light, the LTD insurer argued that the trial court’s ruling was correct and noted that the judge said he would have reached the same result even under the de novo review that the claimant contends was required.
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May 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Taking the position supported by multiemployer plans and amicus curiae the U.S. government and opposed by the withdrawing employers, the U.S. Supreme Court on May 21 affirmed a ruling that the actuarial assumptions used to calculate liability for withdrawing from a multiemployer pension plan do not have to be made by the “measurement date,” which is the end of the plan year before the withdrawal.
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May 21, 2026
NEW YORK — Briefing before the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has concluded in a disability benefits appeal centered on a residual disability provision, with the appellees arguing in their answering brief that the trial court correctly concluded that the provision was not ambiguous and permitted termination of the benefits at age 65, and the beneficiary contending in his reply brief that the parties’ “competing interpretations demonstrate that the Provision is susceptible to more than one reasonable meaning, which is sufficient to establish ambiguity under New York law.”
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May 21, 2026
MIAMI — On de novo review, a Florida federal magistrate judge recommended summary judgment in favor of a long-term disability (LTD) claimant who “sufficiently supported her claim with both objective and subjective evidence of disabling migraines,” adding that “the record is less clear on whether symptoms associated with” postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and “post-concussive cognitive impairments” were disabling.
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May 20, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Coming down on one side of “a split of authority” by concluding that an employee welfare benefit plan appointment of claim fiduciary form (ACF) “is a Plan document,” a California federal judge gave a long-term disability (LTD) beneficiary a win on one of the three issues she raised in the dispute over her covered earnings.
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May 19, 2026
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky federal judge who previously said that the plaintiff in a long-term disability (LTD) case appeared to be “eligible to receive a fee award because she has achieved some degree of success on the merits by virtue of the remand order” ultimately awarded her $450.37 in costs but denied her request for $20,921 in attorney fees; the judge also denied the plaintiff’s motion to reopen the case, saying that it “was filed prematurely.”
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May 19, 2026
ST. LOUIS — Issuing an unpublished opinion concerning a pro se appellant who accused an employer “of lying about when it fired him” and insurers “of not paying all the” disability benefits he was owed, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of his claims against the employer and summary judgment in favor of the insurers.
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May 18, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a May 18 order list noting that Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh would grant review, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a certiorari petition from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) concerning a special financial assistance (SFA) program; the petition highlighted a projection “that opening the SFA program to terminated multiemployer plans . . . would result in the payment of about $6 billion more than would otherwise be distributed through the program,” but the respondent countered that it believes no other terminated fund has been restored the same way it claims to have been and that letting the ruling stand would not result in “dire” consequences for the PBGC.
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May 18, 2026
CHICAGO — In an Employee Retirement Income Security Act challenge to a multiemployer benefit plan amendment under which the end of a Social Security Administration (SSA) disability award results in termination of disability pension benefits, an Illinois federal judge denied the defendants’ motion to stay discovery and granted the claimant’s request to pursue limited discovery outside the administrative record.
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May 15, 2026
BILLINGS, Mont. — Granting summary judgment in favor of a long-term disability (LTD) insurer that reduced, or “offset,” the plaintiff’s monthly check because of a pension rollover, a Montana federal judge ruled in part that the doctrine of contra proferentem — under which ambiguous contract terms must be construed against the insurer — doesn’t apply because “no genuine ambiguity exists after applying ordinary contract interpretation principles.”
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May 15, 2026
NEWARK, N.J. — In a lawsuit brought by a medical testing lab seeking reimbursement from health insurers for COVID-19 testing, the insurers filed an amended counterclaim and third-party complaint seeking recoupment of $30 million they allegedly overpaid the lab after a New Jersey federal judge dismissed without prejudice state law claims by the insurers based on duplicative billing and billing for ancillary tests by the lab and the lab’s billing service.
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May 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its second unanimous decision of the day, the U.S. Supreme Court on May 14 ruled that nothing in the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) bars a federal court from ruling on motions brought under Sections 9 and 10 of the FAA confirming or vacating an arbitration award when the court previously stayed the case pending arbitration.
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May 13, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Rejecting a claimant’s argument that under California law the de novo standard of review should apply even though the insurer is afforded discretion under the policy, a California federal judge granted partial summary judgment for the defendant in a suit challenging denial of long-term disability (LTD) benefits, ruling that “the choice of law to be applied is North Carolina and the standard of review is abuse of discretion.”
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May 13, 2026
The first appellate ruling on the wave of putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act challenges to a common use of forfeited nonvested matching retirement contributions has now been issued, but at least 14 appeals of dismissal rulings remain pending and oral argument is scheduled for late May in three of those appeals, with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to participate in those arguments as amicus curiae.
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May 12, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Merits briefing concerning pleading standards under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act is underway in the U.S. Supreme Court, with the petitioners and amici curiae urging vacatur of a ruling that a putative class suit challenging purportedly underperforming retirement plan investments in hedge funds and private equity was correctly dismissed for failure to allege a “meaningful benchmark”; the petitioners argue that the ruling “contradicts the statutory text, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and this Court’s precedent interpreting both” and is “illogical, unworkable, and unnecessary,” and the amici contend that it weakens protections that are vital for retirement savers.
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May 12, 2026
ST. LOUIS — Becoming the first appellate court to weigh in on a growing wave of Employee Retirement Income Security Act forfeiture cases, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 12 affirmed dismissal for lack of standing but ordered remand because it agreed with the appellant “that the district court abused its discretion by dismissing his complaint with prejudice.”
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May 12, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Proposed rules that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) said in a news release “would create a new category of limited excepted benefits to further expand the ability of employers to offer meaningful fertility benefits to their employees” would do so by amending a regulation that applies to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and other federal laws.
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May 12, 2026
ST. LOUIS — Saying it agreed with the administrator of an accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) plan that the “claim was not covered under the plan and that an exclusion applied,” the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 11 affirmed judgment in a case concerning an insured who fell and hit his head while on blood thinners, developed a subdural hematoma and then died.
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May 12, 2026
BUFFALO, N.Y. — On de novo review following a bench trial, a New York federal magistrate judge ruled that a claimant is entitled to retroactive long-term disability (LTD) benefits and prejudgment interest, concluding that “the cognitive effects of” brain cancer treatment left the claimant “unable to give notice of her long-term disability claim at the time that she stopped working in December 2009” and that “she gave notice ‘as soon as reasonably possible’ after her husband discovered the policy in September 2021.”
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May 12, 2026
PASADENA, Calif. — Largely siding with a group health plan participant in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over surgery coverage, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued an unpublished memorandum disposition ruling that the trial court correctly applied a deferential standard of review but abused its discretion by denying attorney fees and declining to impose statutory penalties.
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May 12, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — Awarding attorney fees that totaled 20% of the total settlement instead of the requested 33-1/3%, a Virginia federal judge granted final approval of a $4.7 million class settlement in a case that survived dismissal and was part of a wave of similar Employee Retirement Income Security Act suits over health plan tobacco surcharges.
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May 11, 2026
NEW CASTLE, Del. — Following a request by the appellants, the Delaware Supreme Court issued a slightly revised opinion that did not change the outcome reversing the Delaware Court of Chancery in a unanimous en banc ruling that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 does not bar “advancement of litigation expenses for the defense of state-law claims brought in state court” because the facts show that the advancement “does not relieve Defendants from ERISA responsibility or liability.”