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Mealey's ERISA

  • May 28, 2025

    DOL Rescinds Guidance That Advised ‘Extreme Care’ On Crypto In 401(k) Plans

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — March 2022 guidance that directed fiduciaries to use “extreme care before they consider adding a cryptocurrency option to a 401(k) plan's investment menu for plan participants” has been rescinded, federal regulators announced May 28. 

  • May 28, 2025

    U.S. Government Urges High Court To Skip PBM Law Preemption Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In contrast to entities that filed five amicus curiae briefs supporting review of a ruling that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and Medicare Part D partially preempt an Oklahoma pharmaceutical benefit manager (PBM) law, the federal government in a May 27 amicus brief argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should deny certiorari.

  • May 28, 2025

    Government To High Court: Clarify Withdrawal Liability By Rejecting Metz Rule

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal government has responded to a U.S. Supreme Court request for its input on a petition for review of a Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act (MPPAA) withdrawal liability decision, arguing in a May 27 amicus curiae brief that review should be granted to consider a modified question and that the high court should “reject the timing rule of [Nat'l Ret. Fund v. Metz Culinary Mgmt.], which has no sound basis in” the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

  • May 28, 2025

    High Court Gets More Feedback On Review Bid Concerning ERISA Benchmark Issue

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Retirement plan participants and an amicus curiae underwriter offer divergent views in briefing an Employee Retirement Income Security Act review petition, with the participants telling the U.S. Supreme Court that “participant-led ERISA fiduciary breach litigation has reduced by nearly 50% the expenses of retirement plan investments” and the underwriter contending that “lower courts’ failure to strike the right balance in fiduciary breach cases has been hugely disruptive and wasteful.”

  • May 28, 2025

    Another ERISA Case Over A Health Plan Tobacco Surcharge Survives Dismissal

    RICHMOND, Va. — Calling Mehlberg v. Compass Grp. USA, Inc. “analogous and compelling persuasive authority,” a Virginia federal judge declined to dismiss a putative class action that is part of a recent wave of similar Employee Retirement Income Security Act suits over health plan tobacco surcharges.

  • May 23, 2025

    This Time, Judge Denies Preliminary Injunction In ERISA Illinois Temp Worker Row

    CHICAGO — Rejecting a motion supported by nine organizations that filed a combined amicus curiae brief, an Illinois federal judge who previously issued a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of an earlier version of an Illinois temporary worker law on May 22 declined to grant a preliminary injunction for the latest version, saying that the plaintiff trade associations and staffing agencies didn’t show that their Employee Retirement Income Security Act preemption argument is likely to succeed on the merits.

  • May 23, 2025

    9th Circuit Agrees That Lack Of ‘Meaningful Benchmarks’ Dooms ERISA Funds Case

    HONOLULU — Saying that retirement plan participants “did not plausibly allege that [Intel Corp.]’s funds underperformed other funds with comparable aims,” the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 22 affirmed dismissal of a putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit challenging retirement plan investments in hedge funds and private equity; the ruling was accompanied by a nine-page concurring opinion that aimed “to clarify the role of comparisons and circumstantial allegations in duty-of-prudence claims.”

  • May 23, 2025

    Recommendation For Individual Arbitration Flagged In Effective Vindication Row

    ATLANTA — A recent report and recommendation from a Florida federal court has been flagged as a supplemental authority in an 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals challenge to use of the effective vindication doctrine in a putative class action filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act; the appeal has drawn amicus curiae input from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and an advocacy organization.

  • May 23, 2025

    3rd Circuit Sets Argument In Withdrawal Liability Row Involving Yellow Corp.

    PHILADELPHIA — Following expedited briefing in a direct appeal of a Delaware federal bankruptcy judge’s ruling upholding two Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) regulations regarding federal special financial assistance (SFA) awarded to multiemployer pension plans in a multi-billion-dollar dispute, the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has scheduled oral argument for June 25.

  • May 22, 2025

    6th Circuit Revives ERISA Fiduciary Claims Against Health Plan TPA

    CINCINNATI — Disagreeing with the trial court on every challenged issue it reached, the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 21 reversed dismissal of a company’s suit against the third-party administrator (TPA) of its self-funded health benefits plan, concluding that relief is available under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and that the company sufficiently alleged that the TPA was a functional fiduciary when allegedly “exercising discretion over its compensation” under a shared savings program (SSP) and “overpaying providers based on flip logic and other claims-processing errors.”

  • May 22, 2025

    Judge Dismisses STD Benefits Case As Moot But Lets Claimant Seek Fees

    CINCINNATI — Defendants that voluntarily reversed the challenged termination of short-term disability (STD) benefits after they were sued and paid up could still be liable for attorney fees under a brief May 21 dismissal ruling in which an Ohio federal judge fully adopted a report and recommendation, noting that the time for objections had expired without any being filed.

  • May 20, 2025

    9th Circuit Mostly Affirms Claimant’s Victory In ERISA Coverage Lawsuit

    PASADENA, Calif. — In an unpublished memorandum disposition mostly affirming judgment against a multiemployer health plan in a coverage denial case, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said in part that the appellee had been given “inadequate notice” that didn’t sufficiently explain that meeting the plan’s “definition of ‘medical necessity’ required attempting lower levels of care . . . before residential treatment.”

  • May 20, 2025

    Fighting Fees, NFL Plan Urges 5th Circuit To Say Disability Claimant Had No Success

    NEW ORLEANS — In its appellant brief urging the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reverse an award of more than $1.25 million in attorney fees and costs, the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan called the award “an unprecedented expansion of the availability of attorney’s fees to ERISA litigants who do not succeed on any legal claim and obtain no judicial relief.”

  • May 20, 2025

    ERISA Discovery In Benefit Denial Cases Is Focus Of Bid For High Court’s Review

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Discovery in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case is the focus of a petition for the U.S. Supreme Court to review a ruling for a multiemployer health plan, with the petitioner arguing that the “decision exacerbates both the ongoing split between Circuits as to determining what a plan administrator must do in order to satisfy its fiduciary obligation to perform a full and fair review, as well as the inconsistent factors that courts employ in order to determine whether discovery should be permitted,” and the plan contending that decision shows only “the routine exercise of judicial discretion in applying the same rule to differing facts.”

  • May 19, 2025

    Judgment Proposal, Fee Request Are Disputed In ERISA Spinoff Benefits Case

    PHILADELPHIA — Following a bench trial and numerous posttrial rulings in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action over corporate restructuring that affected retirement benefits, the parties are briefing disputes over the plaintiffs’ proposed final judgment, with their disagreements generally centering on whether certain groups of employees are included in the certified class.

  • May 19, 2025

    Chapter 13 Debtor Urges U.S. High Court To Stay Out Of Retirement Contributions Row

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Contending that the petitioner’s “split argument is just a Trojan horse to smuggle in a merits argument in favor of a rule endorsed by precisely zero circuits,” a debtor on May 16 urged the U.S. Supreme Court to deny review of a ruling where a split Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel concluded “that voluntary retirement contributions do not constitute disposable income” in Chapter 13 bankruptcies.

  • May 19, 2025

    ‘First And Only’ Forfeiture Row To Reach Stage Could Settle For Nearly $2M

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — Calling the Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuit “the first and only case to reach settlement on this novel theory of recovery,” a plaintiff whose key claims regarding the use of forfeited nonvested retirement plan contributions to offset the plan sponsor’s future matching contributions survived dismissal asked a California federal court on May 16 for preliminary approval of a $1,995,000 class settlement.

  • May 16, 2025

    6th Circuit Finds No Abuse Of Discretion In Long COVID LTD Benefits Denial

    CINCINNATI — Ruling against a claimant who said in her opening brief that “this appears to be the first ‘Long COVID’ disability case to come before the Court,” the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 15 affirmed a judgment upholding denial of her claim for long-term disability (LTD) benefits, concluding that the insurer’s “decision was neither procedurally nor substantively unreasonable.”

  • May 16, 2025

    Class Would Get Up To $6.75M In Proton Beam Row Under Proposed Settlement

    BOSTON — A consolidated Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over refusal to reimburse proton beam radiation therapy (PBRT) costs would be resolved under a settlement proposal granted preliminary approval in a Massachusetts federal court, with the settlement class getting up to $6.75 million and class counsel separately getting up to $2.5 million for attorney fees and costs.

  • May 16, 2025

    Debtors Seek Judgment In Bankruptcy Dispute Over Deferred Compensation Plans

    HOUSTON —  In the aftermath of a decision that two deferred compensation plans associated with Steward Health Care System LLC are “top hat” ones and therefore roughly $60 million in “rabbi trusts” used for them could be liquidated as part of Chapter 11 bankruptcies, the debtors urged a Texas federal bankruptcy court to rule that a putative class adversary complaint in which plan participants invoke the Employee Retirement Income Security Act “is foreclosed by the doctrines of law of the case and issue preclusion.”

  • May 16, 2025

    Nationwide Injunctions Debated In U.S. High Court In Birthright Citizenship Cases

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The constitutionality of nationwide or universal injunctions was debated before the U.S. Supreme Court in May 15 oral arguments concerning three consolidated applications by the federal government seeking a partial stay of the injunctions halting enforcement of President Donald J. Trump’s Jan. 20 birthright citizenship executive order (EO).

  • May 15, 2025

    Parity Act Challenge Is Stayed So Agencies Can Reconsider Final Rules

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A case challenging Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA or Parity Act) final rules issued in 2024 has been stayed at the request of three U.S. agencies that said they plan reconsideration, with a District of Columbia federal judge ordering quarterly progress reports starting in August.

  • May 14, 2025

    After Argument, 6th Circuit Asks What ‘Actuarial Equivalent’ Meant In 1974

    CINCINNATI — Following separate argument in two cases that involve use of decades-old mortality tables and whether part of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act requires “reasonable assumptions” in calculating certain pension benefits, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 13 ordered supplemental briefing “on the meaning of the term ‘actuarial equivalent’ at the time of” ERISA’s 1974 enactment.

  • May 14, 2025

    Former Physician’s Assistant Whose LTD Benefits Were Nixed Sues For Reinstatement

    LYNCHBURG, Va. — Suing the claims administrator that terminated his long-term disability (LTD) benefits, a former emergency room physician’s assistant who says he “underwent a PET/CT scan that indicated Alzheimer’s dementia” argues in part that discovery from other lawsuits has shown that the insurer’s reviewer “denies 85-90% of all disability claims she reviews.”

  • May 14, 2025

    Insurer Gets LTD Benefits Case Transferred To Different California Federal Court

    SAN FRANCISCO — An Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit in which a claimant who says she has “disabling symptoms” of long COVID is challenging denial of her claim for long-term disability (LTD) and life insurance waiver of premium (LWOP) benefits will be transferred to a different federal court in California after a judge considered “deference owed to Plaintiff’s choice of forum, convenience, and the local interest in the case.”