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Mealey's ERISA

  • January 28, 2026

    Judge OKs Subclasses As Long-Running Multiplan ERISA Suit Continues

    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.

  • January 28, 2026

    Split 9th Circuit Affirms Ruling For Insurer In Mental Health Treatment Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — In a 2-1 unpublished memorandum disposition issued Jan. 27, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed denial of a claim for a minor dependent’s stay at a residential mental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.

  • January 28, 2026

    Full 11th Circuit Will Consider Overruling Its ERISA Exhaustion Precedent

    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.

  • January 27, 2026

    9th Circuit Won’t Allow Interlocutory Appeal On Class Certification

    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.

  • January 27, 2026

    4th Circuit Addresses Bankruptcy Issue In Affirming Withdrawal Liability Ruling

    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.

  • January 27, 2026

    6 More ERISA Forfeiture Cases Have Been Dismissed By Federal Judges

    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.

  • January 26, 2026

    6th Circuit Revives ERISA Mental Health Claim, Not Parity Act Count

    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.

  • January 26, 2026

    Split 9th Circuit Vacates Facility Fees Ruling For Multiemployer Health Plan

    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.

  • January 23, 2026

    11th Circuit Affirms Insurer Win In LTD ‘Active Employment’ Case

    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.

  • January 23, 2026

    Defendants Score Summary Judgment Win In Pension Actuarial Equivalence Case

    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.

  • January 23, 2026

    D.C. Circuit Affirms Denial Of Postjudgment Discovery In Pension Class Action

    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.

  • January 22, 2026

    2 More Judges Decline To Dismiss ERISA Tobacco Surcharge Lawsuits

    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.

  • January 22, 2026

    High Court Seeks Response To Multiemployer Special Financial Assistance Petition

    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.”

  • January 21, 2026

    Judge: Engineer Claiming COVID Vaccine Injury Is Due LTD Benefits

    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.

  • January 20, 2026

    High Court Hears Argument On Withdrawal Liability Assumptions Question

    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.

  • January 20, 2026

    11th Circuit Won’t Rehear LTD Preexisting Conditions Exclusion Case

    ATLANTA — Without substantive explanation, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied an unanswered petition for en banc rehearing concerning a split panel’s ruling that it was unreasonable for a long-term disability (LTD) insurer to interpret a preexisting conditions exclusion in a way that the majority said means that “treatment for a headache during the lookback period converts any disease or condition that causes headaches into a preexisting condition.”

  • January 16, 2026

    U.S. High Court Grants Petition On Role Of Benchmarks In ERISA Claims

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 16 granted a petition for a writ of certiorari by retirement plan participants who asked the justices to decide a question concerning fund underperformance claims and whether a “meaningful benchmark” must be alleged; the high court left pending a similar petition in Parker-Hannifin Corporation, et al. v. Michael D. Johnson, et al. that was scheduled to be considered at the same conference.

  • January 16, 2026

    Pa. Federal Judge Upholds Denial Of LTD Benefits For River Pilot With Long COVID

    PHILADELPHIA — Saying he is “constrained by” the arbitrary and capricious standard of review, a Pennsylvania federal judge on Jan. 15 upheld denial of long-term disability (LTD) benefits for a river pilot who was diagnosed with long COVID.

  • January 16, 2026

    Judge Applies ‘Regular Care’ Provision In Upholding LTD Benefits Termination

    CHICAGO — Finding on de novo review that a former Whole Foods worker who briefly obtained long-term disability (LTD) benefits because of back pain didn’t show “that he was under the ‘regular care of a physician’ as is required under the Plan,” an Illinois federal judge upheld termination of the benefits.

  • January 15, 2026

    2nd Circuit Affirms Arbitrary And Capricious Standard In LTD Benefits Case

    NEW YORK — Briefly upholding the trial court’s decision to use the arbitrary and capricious review standard in a long-term disability (LTD) benefits case, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said in a Jan. 15 nonprecedential summary order that it affirmed the ruling for the reasons given in the lower court’s “detailed opinion and order.”

  • January 15, 2026

    LTD Claimant Takes Pre-Existing Condition Exclusion Fight To 9th Circuit

    SAN FRANCISCO — Arguing that the trial court made errors on de novo review including “expansively applying a pre-existing condition exclusion to bar coverage for a disability caused by post-coverage traumatic injuries” and “disregarding uncontroverted medical evidence,” an appellant claimant filed a Jan. 14 brief urging the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reverse an order that upheld denial of her claim for long-term disability (LTD) benefits.

  • January 15, 2026

    $332M Settlement Of ERISA Class Action Over Residual Annuities Wins Final OK

    NEW YORK — Saying a separate order would follow regarding the pending motion for attorney fees and costs in the long-running Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuit over residual annuities (RAs), a New York federal judge on Jan. 14 granted final approval to a $332 million class settlement the plaintiffs said will “yield the 1,177 Class members an average net settlement benefit of almost $200,000” even if the fees and costs are awarded as requested.

  • January 15, 2026

    High Court Seeks Response On Arbitration Award Vacatur Concerning Severance

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 14 requested an employer’s response to a certiorari petition concerning a decision the petitioner says “encourages a cascade of litigation over the enforceability of arbitral awards”; the challenged 2-1 appeals court ruling affirmed vacatur of an award that resulted from pro se arbitration over severance pay and concerned an Employee Retirement Income Security Act discrimination claim that the majority concluded the claimant never raised.

  • January 14, 2026

    $9.6M Class Settlement Of ERISA Forfeiture Case Wins Initial OK

    NEW YORK — An Employee Retirement Income Security Act case squarely focused on using forfeited nonvested matching retirement funds to reduce company contributions would be resolved under a $9.6 million class settlement that won preliminary approval in a New York federal court on Jan. 13.

  • January 14, 2026

    Washington Federal Judge Trims Attorney Fees In Remanded ERISA Disability Case

    SEATTLE — Addressing an opposed request for attorney fees totaling $239,390 in a long-term disability (LTD) benefits case involving long COVID that was remanded to the administrator for full consideration because of a “substantial” procedural error, a Washington federal judge on Jan. 13 reduced the hours and the blended hourly rate, concluding that the appropriate fee award in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act case is $112,050.