I was in the First Circuit courtroom not too long ago waiting to argue when I became interested in another case on the argument list, which concerned the overlap of legal malpractice and patent law, both areas in which I have litigated cases in the past. But what really grabbed my attention about the case was the centrality to the argument of the statute of limitations, and in particular whether it was appropriately decided by the court as a matter of law on summary judgment or whether instead it was an issue that belonged to the jury to decide.
There is a tendency in ERISA litigation for defense counsel and often courts to treat the statute of limitations as a legal argument for resolution by the court, sometimes as early as at the motion to dismiss stage. In ERISA litigation, this can be a particularly difficult issue, because of the somewhat amorphous nature of the statute of limitations standard. While that is not so much the case with regard to benefit claims, because the court simply applies the most analogous state law statute of limitations to the claim, the statute of limitations set forth in ERISA for breach of fiduciary duty claims is broadly written, and one can argue that all sorts of fact patterns do or do not satisfy it. Depending on where the court is that you are litigating in, the question can become even more amorphous when one presses – or defends against – equitable relief claims under ERISA.
Nor are these just academic problems or exercises. I once litigated an ESOP class action where the entire multimillion dollar liability depended on whether or not the timing of the class representatives’ knowledge of the transaction at issue was sufficient to trigger the bar of the statute of limitations under ERISA for such claims, and I could give you a laundry list of other examples from my own practice where issues related to the statute of limitations played a central role.
One of the central issues in those disputes tends to be just how much knowledge of the events at issue or the breaches at issue is necessary to trigger the running of the statutory bar. After all, the disclosure requirements of ERISA guarantee that some information of some kind relevant to a claim being made under ERISA was, broadly speaking, “known” to some extent to the plaintiff at some point in time. In fact, the leading First Circuit decisions on the statute of limitations under ERISA effectively revolve around the question of how much knowledge is enough – and not on the question of whether there was any knowledge at all. In real time in litigating ERISA cases in the First Circuit that raise statute of limitations issues, that tends to be the issue that dominates hearings and briefs.
It’s always been my view that these should be seen as more fact questions for trial than legal questions for motion practice. Although in an ERISA case there is generally no jury, and thus the decisionmaker is the same either way on questions related to the running of the statute of limitations, treating it as an issue for the factfinder and not as a legal issue for motion practice ensures that all of the relevant evidence on the question is heard – which is something I think the statute of limitations determination generally requires, but which common practice in ERISA litigation often does not allow, by instead having the issue decided on motions to dismiss or on summary judgment.
In any event, this is pretty much the conclusion that was just reached by the First Circuit in the patent and legal malpractice case that I saw argued the last time I was arguing at the First Circuit. You can find a good story on it here, if you don’t want to read the entire opinion.
Now it’s on ERISA litigators to see if they can use it to move the statute of limitations determination in their cases to trial, and out of motions to dismiss or for summary judgment, in cases that warrant it.








