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Mealey's ERISA

  • December 22, 2025

    Third Amended ERISA Fees Complaint Is Dismissed With Prejudice

    GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Saying in part that “case law in this Circuit resoundingly demonstrates that to plead a plausible excessive fee claim, an employee must supply sufficient factual context about plan fees and services,” a Michigan federal judge dismissed a third amended complaint with prejudice and closed the putative class action that challenged allegedly imprudent management of a retirement plan under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

  • December 19, 2025

    $8M ESOP Settlement That Followed Effective Vindication Ruling Wins Final OK

    WILMINGTON, Del. — One of the first Employee Retirement Income Security Act cases in which a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals applied the “effective vindication” doctrine in declining to compel individual arbitration has been resolved by an $8 million class settlement that the plaintiff said will yield average net distributions of more than $8,500 per class member; the suit filed in a Delaware federal court challenged a 2016 employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) transaction.

  • December 19, 2025

    Panel Splits On Equitable Relief Issue In ERISA Suit Against Administrator

    NEW ORLEANS — In a decision that included a partial dissent, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Dec. 18 affirmed holdings contrary to the positions of health plans’ third-party administrator (TPA), ruling that the threshold question of arbitrability had not been “clearly and unmistakably delegated to an arbitrator” and that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act claims for money damages are equitable rather than legal.

  • December 19, 2025

    5th Circuit Reverses Fee Award Because NFL Disability Claimant Didn’t Succeed

    NEW ORLEANS — Concluding that favorable factual findings are “a moral victory . . . insufficient to justify an award of attorney’s fees” and that the claimant here ultimately obtained no legal relief, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Dec. 18 reversed an award of more than $1.25 million to a former National Football League player who sued for a higher level of disability benefits than he was awarded, prevailed after a bench trial and then saw that favorable ruling reversed in a previous appeal.

  • December 18, 2025

    Disability Case Involving Long COVID Dismissed Under Governmental Exemption

    CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — An Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuit filed by a pro se former medical center employee who said he was wrongly denied long-term disability (LTD) benefits after long COVID and other issues including depression and anxiety rendered him unable to work has been dismissed by a Virginia federal judge, who ruled that the only claim fails because the center’s LTD plan is a governmental one exempt from ERISA.

  • December 17, 2025

    PBGC To High Court: Review High-Stakes Special Financial Assistance Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Arguing in part that the decision at issue “will likely result in the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to terminated pension plans that Congress intentionally excluded from” a special financial assistance (SFA) program, the U.S. solicitor general filed a certiorari petition on behalf of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) urging the U.S. Supreme Court to “grant review without awaiting the development of a circuit conflict.”

  • December 17, 2025

    Like Its Peers, 11th Circuit Applies Effective Vindication Doctrine In ERISA Case

    ATLANTA — Saying, “No circuit has reached a contrary conclusion,” the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals became the seventh circuit court to rule that an arbitration provision is unenforceable because it barred “effective vindication” of statutory Employee Retirement Income Security Act rights; the putative class action at hand concerns an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and an advocacy organization filed October 2024 amicus curiae briefs supporting application of the effective vindication doctrine.

  • December 17, 2025

    LTD Claimant Seeks Info Declaration, Other Relief In Suit Over Terminated Benefits

    PITTSBURGH — Among other things, a nurse who has been diagnosed with a chronic pain condition and is challenging termination of her long-term disability (LTD) benefits has sued seeking a declaration that, at a claimant’s request, an LTD insurer “has an obligation to provide information in its claim files that is relevant to a participant’s benefit claim regardless of whether an adverse decision has been made.”

  • December 16, 2025

    ‘Top Hat’ Plan Participants Seek Review Of 6th Circuit Ruling Against Them

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The trust administrator for “top hat” deferred compensation and retirement plans on Dec. 15 waived its right to respond to a certiorari petition in which plan participants argue that they were wrongly left without relief from federal and state law because the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals “adopted an exceedingly narrow and historically unmoored understanding of equitable relief” while simultaneously embracing “an all-too-broad understanding of preemption.”

  • December 15, 2025

    Class Members Get Up To $75,000 Apiece In Final Proton Beam Settlement

    BOSTON — A Massachusetts federal judge on Dec. 12 gave final approval to a claims-made class settlement over proton beam therapy (PBT or PBRT) that is capped at $6.75 million but at last report would result in distributions of less than $1.65 million because just 22 claims were submitted; in a different order issued the same day, the judge granted a separate $2 million for class counsel.

  • December 15, 2025

    High Court Passes On ERISA Preemption Dispute Over Out-Of-Network Care

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 15 denied a certiorari petition in which insurers and health plan administrators challenged a Nevada Supreme Court ruling that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act does not preempt state law claims concerning out-of-network (OON) care, which they argued conflicts with the conclusion of “[e]very federal appellate court to have considered the issue.”

  • December 15, 2025

    Judge: Exhaustion Wasn’t Required For Fiduciary Breach Claim In Disability Case

    PHOENIX — Saying that a claim that an employer “breached its fiduciary duty by failing to inform” a disability claimant “of the consequences to his benefits of becoming a part-time employee . . . is not a disguised claim for benefits even if it results in a monetary award,” an Arizona federal judge declined to grant the employer summary judgment for failure to exhaust administrative remedies as to that claim.

  • December 15, 2025

    2nd Circuit Sets Argument In LTD Benefits Case Centered On Review Standard

    NEW YORK — Standard of review is the sole issue in an appeal where the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear oral argument on Jan. 12 regarding a denial of long-term disability (LTD) benefits appeal that was upheld under the arbitrary and capricious review standard in the trial court; the parties dispute whether the insurer had discretionary authority and whether it complied with claim regulations.

  • December 15, 2025

    Florida Federal Judge Upholds ‘Any Occupation’ LTD Benefits Termination

    MIAMI — Finding that it was not arbitrary and capricious for the claim administrator of a long-term disability (LTD) plan to determine that a former software engineer “with a history of chronic back pain and lumbar degenerative disease” was not disabled under an “any occupation” definition, a Florida federal judge upheld termination of the benefit.

  • December 12, 2025

    Executive Order Requires Evaluation Of Influence Of Foreign-Owned Proxy Advisers

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Dec. 11, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order seeking to protect investors and pensions from politicized advice from foreign-owned proxy advisers.

  • December 11, 2025

    Noting AI Fabrications, Other Issues, Judge Sanctions Pro Se Disability Claimant

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — Two days after the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a pro se litigant’s petitions for writs of mandamus in a dispute involving long-term disability (LTD) benefits, an Ohio federal judge on Dec. 10 issued an amended ruling designating him a vexatious litigant, dismissing his case without prejudice and imposing sanctions including a $1,500 penalty and a three-part filing restriction, highlighting “his repeated failure to appear” and “his (apparently ongoing) use of AI resulting in fabricated citations.”

  • December 11, 2025

    LTD Claimant Is Granted Limited Discovery Outside Administrative Record

    TAMPA, Fla. — Saying that the “parties agree to limit the scope of discovery to the issues identified in” Cerrito v. Liberty Life Assurance Co., a Florida federal magistrate judge granted a long-term disability (LTD) claimant’s request for discovery outside the administrative record in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit.

  • December 10, 2025

    Government Urges High Court Review Of ERISA Burden Question, Shifts Position

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Saying that now is the time for the U.S. Supreme Court to address a question it has thrice declined to consider — and acknowledging that the position it now takes represents a change from its historical one — the U.S. government on Dec. 9 filed an amicus curiae brief urging the high court to grant a certiorari petition that asks whether “burden-shifting applies to the element of causation under” part of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

  • December 10, 2025

    Government To High Court: Resolve ERISA Meaningful Benchmarks Circuit Split

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a Dec. 9 amicus curiae brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a certiorari petition, the U.S. government opines that there were two significant errors in the challenged decision concerning the role benchmarks play in pleading Employee Retirement Income Security Act claims; the 2-1 ruling by a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel revived a putative class action over a passively managed Northern Trust Focus Funds suite of target date funds (TDFs).

  • December 10, 2025

    Half The Requested Attorney Fees Awarded In LTD Case Remanded To Administrator

    SAN FRANCISCO — Finding that “the reversal of the determination of denial and the remand for consideration with a vocational analysis constitutes a sufficient degree of success to warrant attorney’s fees” in a case challenging termination of long-term disability (LTD) benefits under an any-occupation standard, a California federal magistrate judge awarded just half of the nearly $185,000 requested for attorney fees and declined to amend the judgment to award the benefits pending the determination on remand.

  • December 09, 2025

    9th Circuit Affirms That ERISA Preempts Claims Against Health Plan Administrator

    PASADENA, Calif. — Citing a May 2024 decision, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued an unpublished memorandum disposition upholding dismissal of California state law claims against a health insurance administrator on the grounds that the claims were preempted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

  • December 09, 2025

    5th Circuit Affirms Ruling For Grocery Worker In Suit Over Termination After Injury

    NEW ORLEANS — In an unpublished per curiam order, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment against a former grocery worker who alleged that her employment and benefits were improperly terminated to keep her from receiving benefits under a work injury plan and a return-to-work program that were governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

  • December 09, 2025

    $84M Deal To Resolve Wells Fargo ESOP Dividends Case Gets Initial OK

    MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota federal judge on Dec. 8 granted preliminary approval of a settlement under which Wells Fargo & Co. would pay $84 million to resolve a class action against it and two other defendants; the Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit challenges how Wells Fargo used dividends of its preferred stock held in its 401(k)’s employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) fund.

  • December 08, 2025

    DOL Mulls Amicus Brief In ERISA Pension Risk Transfer Appeal Over Standing

    RICHMOND, Va. — On the heels of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s appellant brief in its interlocutory appeal of a ruling that retirees had standing to file a putative class lawsuit that is part of a much-watched string of pension risk transfer (PRT) challenges, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on Dec. 5 asked the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for extra time to decide whether to file an amicus curiae brief; among other things, the retirees generally allege that the use of offshore captive reinsurers makes the insurers that are responsible to pay annuities because of the PRTs more likely to fall short of their obligations.

  • December 05, 2025

    1st Circuit Appeal Of LTD Benefits Termination Is Dropped Per Stipulation

    BOSTON — A claimant who unsuccessfully challenged a determination that she wasn’t entitled to long-term disability (LTD) benefits under an any-occupation standard despite being approved for Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) has dropped her appeal in the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.