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February 06, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — Filing a joint stipulation in Virginia federal court, the parties in a case that an employer and its self-funded health plan filed against the plan’s third-party administrator (TPA) said they are dismissing with prejudice the case over allegations that the TPA violated Employee Retirement Income Security Act fiduciary standards “by, among other things, (i) paying more for healthcare claims than was even billed, (ii) securing kickbacks from providers and affiliated intermediaries, (iii) double-paying claims, and (iv) pocketing rebates.”
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February 05, 2026
CHICAGO — Reversing because it concluded that a deceased retirement plan participant “did not substantially comply with the plan’s beneficiary-change requirements,” the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ordered entry of judgment in favor of the decedent’s ex-wife in the estate dispute involving the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
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February 04, 2026
ST. LOUIS — Giving an employer an outlier victory in a putative class action that is similar to many other recent Employee Retirement Income Security Act challenges to tobacco surcharges, a Missouri federal judge on Feb. 3 dismissed the complaint with prejudice and said the statute at issue “does not impose a retroactive reimbursement requirement for tobacco cessation surcharges."
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February 04, 2026
FRANKFORT, Ky. — In an unpublished opinion, a split Kentucky appeals panel reversed and remanded a ruling against the third-party administrator of a short-term disability (STD) plan in a long-running case where a jury awarded the claimant $7,125,000 in emotional distress and punitive damages
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February 02, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — Three amicus curiae briefs filed Jan. 30 urge the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to affirm 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, with one of those briefs coming from former U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) officials who argue that the Jan. 9 amicus brief the DOL filed here shows that “an effort is underway to limit the scope of” the private right of action under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
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February 02, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Fiduciaries of self-insured group health plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act would receive compensation information from pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) “services and affiliated providers of brokerage and consulting services” under a proposed rule that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has unveiled.
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January 30, 2026
OAKLAND, Calif. — Just under two weeks after ruling that only a declaratory relief claim survived dismissal in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case in which a transgender woman diagnosed with gender dysphoria challenged a health plan’s refusal to cover a facial feminization surgery it deemed not medically necessary, a California federal judge dismissed the case with prejudice pursuant to the parties’ joint stipulation.
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January 29, 2026
BALTIMORE — Finding that “the commonality and typicality prerequisites are not met here,” a Maryland federal judge on Jan. 28 declined to certify “a class spanning over five decades of NFL players” in a suit over NFL disability benefits; in separate rulings the same day, she denied three motions in which the defendants sought summary judgment and denied the plaintiffs’ motion to strike two declarations submitted in support of the summary judgment motions.
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January 29, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A putative class pension benefit statements case on its second remand from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was dismissed with prejudice by a California federal judge on Jan. 28 pursuant to a joint stipulation.
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January 29, 2026
KALAMAZOO, Mich. — On de novo review, a Michigan federal judge concluded that insurers wrongly denied a total disability claim filed by a surgeon who had long received residual disability benefits because of back pain and that awarding him benefits outright is appropriate because the insurers “are not entitled to a ‘second bite at the apple.’”
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January 28, 2026
AUSTIN, Texas — On remand following the dispute’s second trip to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, a Texas federal judge created four subclasses in the suit brought on behalf of participants in thousands of unrelated Employee Retirement Income Security Act retirement and health benefit plans.
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January 28, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — In a 2-1 unpublished memorandum disposition issued Jan. 27, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed denial of a claim for a minor dependent’s stay at a residential mental health treatment center that a health insurer said was not medically necessary.
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January 28, 2026
ATLANTA — Agreeing to en banc rehearing concerning a 40-year-old circuit precedent that two panel members had said “imposed a judicially-created and atextual administrative exhaustion requirement for fiduciary-breach and statutory claims under” the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 27 vacated a ruling affirming dismissal of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) valuation case.
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January 27, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A grant of class certification in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over alleged underpayment for out-of-network behavioral health treatment will stand after the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 26 denied a petition for leave to file an interlocutory appeal that involves the question of whether underpayment of benefits for an ERISA plan is an injury sufficient for standing purposes.
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January 27, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — Resolving “two important questions” that both “concern what happens when a multiemployer pension plan submits a proof of claim for withdrawal liability in the bankruptcy of a contributing employer,” the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 26 affirmed summary judgment against an employer that withdrew from the multiemployer fund and its control group.
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January 27, 2026
Aligning with the majority of rulings in the wave of putative Employee Retirement Income Security Act class suits challenging a common use of forfeited nonvested matching retirement contributions, federal judges have granted defendants’ dismissal motions in cases filed against RTX Corp., Amazon.com Services LLC, WakeMed Health & Hospitals, Meijer Inc., Alliance Coal LLC and Northrop Grumman Corp.
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January 26, 2026
CINCINNATI — Concluding that the trial court’s ruling in favor of a health insurer was correct on a Parity Act claim but erroneous on an Employee Retirement Income Security Act claim for mental health benefits, the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated summary judgment on the latter claim, which it ordered sent back to the insurer for reprocessing.
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January 26, 2026
PASADENA, Calif. — Splitting 2-1 on how to review for abuse of discretion, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued an unpublished memorandum disposition vacating and remanding judgment for a multiemployer health plan in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case concerning facility fees.
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January 23, 2026
ATLANTA — Concluding in an unpublished per curiam opinion that an insurer “had a reasonable basis” for finding that a surgeon dropped below the number of working hours required for “active employment” early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the insurer that denied long-term disability (LTD) benefits on the basis that a tremor he consulted a doctor about over that time constituted an excluded preexisting condition.
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January 23, 2026
MINNEAPOLIS — Concluding “that actuarial equivalence does not require reasonable underlying assumptions” and distinguishing five cases in which she said Ian Altman’s expert testimony concerning actuarial equivalence wasn’t excluded, a Minnesota federal judge excluded Altman’s testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 702(c) and then repeatedly credited the opposing expert’s testimony in granting summary judgment for the defendants in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit concerning early retirement benefits.
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January 23, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Weighing in again on a pension calculation class action that has repeatedly come before it after a permanent injunction issued in 2011, the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued an unpublished per curiam judgment affirming denial of a motion for postjudgment discovery and accounting.
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January 22, 2026
Two more federal judges have ruled that some or all claims survive dismissal in putative class actions challenging surcharges that health plan administrators require tobacco or nicotine users to pay, and a motion to compel arbitration has been granted in another similar case.
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January 22, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court has asked a terminated multiemployer pension plan to respond to a certiorari petition filed on behalf of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) in which the U.S. solicitor general argues 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 and urges the high court to “grant review without awaiting the development of a circuit conflict.”
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January 21, 2026
SAN JOSE, Calif. — On de novo review, a California federal judge concluded that a mechanical engineer who said she was disabled by a COVID vaccine injury due to symptoms including fatigue and brain fog is entitled to retroactive long-term disability (LTD) benefits under the plan’s initial “regular occupation” standard.
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January 20, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In Jan. 20 oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court on the parameters for calculating liability for withdrawing from a multiemployer pension plan, employers urged the high court to rule that there is a strict deadline for actuarial assumptions, and multiemployer plan trustees and the government as amicus curiae countered that the statutory text, standard actuarial practice and policy concerns all cut against that position.