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July 17, 2026
ATLANTA — Affirming a ruling that upheld denial of a claim for long-term disability (LTD) benefits, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said in an unpublished opinion that the pro se litigant failed to show that he was disabled by cardiac or mental health conditions.
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July 16, 2026
NEW YORK — Declining to compel discovery outside the administrative record in a suit challenging denial of long-term disability (LTD) benefits for an attorney diagnosed with long COVID, a New York federal judge concluded that the attorney “has not shown how his requests are relevant and, if relevant, anything other than disproportionate to the needs of the case.”
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July 16, 2026
MIAMI — A former accountant sued Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, the insurer and claims administrator of his long-term disability (LTD) insurance policy, in a Florida federal court, asserting that he is entitled to benefits under his LTD policy retroactive to the day the insurer ended benefits for his alleged disability related to long COVID, as well as other conditions, including headaches and brain fog, that have prevented him from working as an accountant since May 2023.
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July 16, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — Partly reviving a suit that New Jersey health care practices filed against health insurance carriers over reimbursement for out-of-network elective and emergency claims, the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a nonprecedential opinion vacating dismissal of the practices’ Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) claims and some of the practices’ Employee Retirement Income Security Act claims.
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July 15, 2026
SALT LAKE CITY — Concluding that underperformance allegations concerning a synthetic guaranteed investment contract (GIC) are “insufficient to raise any relevant plausible inference” and that a prohibited transaction claim fails to meet the “minimal pleading standard” outlined in Cunningham v. Cornell Univ., a Utah federal judge issued a memorandum decision and order dismissing a putative class suit that retirement plan participants filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
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July 15, 2026
HOUSTON — Ruling against a class of retirement plan participants that had prevailed following a bench trial, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued an unpublished July 14 opinion vacating the judgment and remanding for fact-finding “to evaluate Article III standing” in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over a retirement plan’s switch from a final average pay formula to a cash balance plan; in a separate concurrence, one member of the panel opined “that the type of consequences alleged constitutes an Article III injury.”
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July 15, 2026
ALBANY, N.Y. — Concluding that Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A. “precludes a finding of Article III standing absent a concrete injury regardless of the type of remedy sought,” a New York federal judge declined to alter or amend a September ruling in which he dismissed a putative class action challenging a pension risk transfer (PRT) under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
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July 13, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Filing amicus curiae briefs in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and other entities urge the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm 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.”
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July 13, 2026
DALLAS — Retirement plan fiduciaries moved to dismiss with prejudice a second amended class action complaint filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)by retirement plan participants challenging the plan’s former investment in a Prudential Guaranteed Income Fund and alleged recordkeeping fees, arguing that the participants still lack meaningful stable value fund comparators and rely on rejected financial condition allegations.
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July 13, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Following an audit prompted by allegations involving Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action litigation, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released a public report finding that the agency “did not establish sufficient controls for how it shared confidential information using common interest agreements with non-governmental entities.”
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July 10, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — An Employee Retirement Income Security Act case challenging the use of allegedly outdated assumptions to calculate annuities for married pension plan participants would be resolved in a settlement that the named plaintiffs say would provide “more than $149 million in combined monetary and prospective relief to” members of a proposed settlement class and subclasses that together would consist of nearly 170,000 individuals; in the preliminary approval motion filed in a California federal court on July 9, the named plaintiffs further say that up to $35 million for attorney fees and costs “would not reduce the monetary benefits to the Class.”
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July 09, 2026
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Adopting a report and recommendation over the objections of a plaintiff whose long-term disability (LTD) benefits were terminated, a Tennessee federal judge granted an insurer’s motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) and denied the plaintiff’s JMOL motion, concluding in part that the insurer “appropriately relied on review of Plaintiff’s medical records without requiring a physical examination.”
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July 08, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Weighing in on a separate aspect of the withdrawal liability case that spawned a May 21 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 7 partially reversed and remanded a summary judgment ruling in which a multiemployer pension fund had prevailed on all issues.
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July 07, 2026
The number of Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuits focused on “voluntary” accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity insurance programs and filed against large employers and insurance brokers is growing, with at least three new putative class cases filed in the past few months.
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July 07, 2026
MILWAUKEE — Concluding that a plaintiff who challenged the decision to keep an allegedly underperforming stable value fund (SVF) in a retirement plan failed to state his claims because the comparators he proposed were not “meaningful benchmarks,” a Wisconsin federal judge dismissed the putative class case with prejudice; among other things, the judge said that “the potential insolvency of one out of ten wrap providers is insufficient to render the Fidelty SVF an imprudent choice.”
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July 07, 2026
CHICAGO — Responding to an amicus curiae brief in which the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) urges the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to affirm a withdrawal liability ruling that is contrary to decisions by two sister circuits, an employer argues that the government agency’s position aligns with its own “core textual arguments and ordinary common sense,” and a multiemployer pension plan contends that the agency “does not meaningfully address the two federal appeals decisions that disagree with its Opinion Letter, let alone explain why those courts’ reading of the text is incorrect.”
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July 06, 2026
ATLANTA — A Georgia federal judge on July 2 granted preliminary approval to a $47.75 million deal that would resolve a long-running suit over lump-sum payments from terminated “top hat” plans that provided life annuities for NCR Corp. executives; the executives said that under the deal, the average gross settlement for 189 members of an opt-out settlement class would exceed $252,000.
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July 02, 2026
PASADENA, Calif. — Rejecting the appellant’s reliance on an award of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits that occurred after the determination at issue, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel handed down an unpublished memorandum disposition affirming a ruling that upheld denial of a claim for long-term disability (LTD) benefits.
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July 02, 2026
NEW YORK — Resolving an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case squarely focused on using forfeited nonvested matching retirement funds to reduce company contributions, a New York federal judge issued two July 1 orders granting final approval of a $9.6 million class settlement and awarding attorney fees totaling $3.2 million, also granting the nine class representatives $5,000 each for case contribution awards.
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July 01, 2026
ST. LOUIS — In a June 30 judgment issued without substantive explanation, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition to allow an interlocutory challenge to certification of three opt-out classes and one mandatory class in a case that is part of a wave of Employee Retirement Income Security Act challenges to health plan tobacco surcharges.
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July 01, 2026
OAKLAND, Calif. — In a June 30 joint notice that was filed just over a week before a bench trial was scheduled to begin, parties in a long-running Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action over severance benefits told a California federal court “that they have reached agreement on all terms of their proposed class action settlement and expect to have a fully executed Memorandum of Understanding within the next few days.”
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June 30, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — In a June 29 order without substantive explanation, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals agreed to allow an interlocutory appeal concerning certification of an opt-out class in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case where the initial certification of a mandatory class was vacated under the appellate court’s recent Trauernicht v. Genworth Fin. Inc. ruling.
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June 30, 2026
ST. LOUIS — Affirming dismissal of a putative class unjust enrichment suit concerning allegations that a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) violated Arkansas law, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on June 29 ruled in part that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act preempts geographic coverage requirements imposed by regulations implementing the law’s network adequacy provision.
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June 29, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 26 denied a certiorari petition in a complicated withdrawal liability case concerning federal special financial assistance (SFA) awarded to multiemployer pension plans.
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June 29, 2026
NEW YORK — Saying she “has been advised that this action has been or will be settled,” a New York federal judge on June 26 dismissed a case in which she recently mostly denied cross-motions for summary judgment regarding a long-term disability (LTD) claimant who purportedly suffered from long COVID but was denied benefits; the judge noted that the dismissal was without prejudice to restoration if an application seeking such is filed within 30 days.