I, and a cast of other ERISA Nostradamus[es], claim to foretell the future of ERISA litigation – by gazing back at the past year – in this new article in Planadvisor, titled “Expect More Varied ERISA Litigation in 2017.” I am quoted in the article on the trend line of stock drop litigation, but also
Sanders v. The Phoenix Insurance Company Is a Comprehensive Insurance Coverage Decision, But Have Bad Facts Again Made Bad Law?
So this is interesting, from a couple of perspectives. The First Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a fairly comprehensive opinion addressing a number of issues in insurance coverage law in Massachusetts. The facts are a little salacious, and read more like a John Grisham plot than real life, but unfortunately, odd facts often underlie
DOL 1, Critics of the New Fiduciary Regulations 0: Comments on NAFA v. Perez
Upcoming Webinar on Retirement Plan Risk Management: An Overview
I had fun speaking on ERISA litigation remedies with Eric Serron of Steptoe and Joe Barton of Cohen Milstein this past Thursday at the American Conference Institute’s 13th National Forum on ERISA Litigation. Since Eric’s exclusively a defense lawyer and Joe’s exclusively a plaintiff’s lawyer, Michael Prame of Groom Law Group, when introducing the
When Are Defense Counsel’s Fees Relevant to an Attorney Fee Claim by a Plaintiff under ERISA?
Wow, this is fascinating. The “this” in question is an interesting little twist in litigation over an attorney fee award to plaintiff’s counsel in the long running ERISA litigation, Frommert v. Conkright. Attorney fee awards in ERISA litigation are a fascinating sub-issue in and of itself, for a number of reasons. First, it is
A Tale of Two Cases, or Why Bad Facts Make Bad (Stock Drop) Law
I will be sharing a dais with Joe Barton later this month at the 13th National Forum on ERISA Litigation, where we are both part of a panel that is discussing equitable remedies under ERISA. Joe won an interesting case before the Second Circuit recently, Severstal Wheeling Retirement Committee v WPN Corporation, in which
Whitley v. BP, Stock Drops, and the Outer Limits of Fiduciary Responsibility
There is an old political saying that where you stand depends on where you sit, which, roughly translated, means that people tend to assert positions that are beneficial to their own organizations and employers, rather than based upon a consideration of broader issues. The author of the maxim, Rufus Miles, thinks the idea goes
The Centre Barely Holds: ERISA Preemption after Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company
There have been an interesting series of federal court decisions concerning ERISA preemption during the past few months, some of which, in my view, cannot be fairly squared with the United States Supreme Court’s preemption decision earlier this year in Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual. I discussed in my recent article in Bloomberg BNA’s Tax
Singing the Praises of ESOPs
I do a lot of litigation related to ESOPs, sometimes for them, and sometimes against them. One thing I have learned for sure over the years is that the well-run ESOPs, where everything is aboveboard and the fiduciaries are clearly acting – and want to act – in the interest of the employee participants, are
The Ninth Circuit Deems the Compensation of Outside Medical Reviewers Relevant in LTD Litigation, in Demer v MetLife
So the other particularly fascinating item – to me, anyway – that popped up in my twitter feed while I was on vacation was this important decision by the Ninth Circuit, Demer v. IBM and MetLife, addressing whether (and, if so, how) the number of reviews done by, and compensation earned by, outside medical