I have been tied up on trial out of state most of January, and am now starting to go back over the more interesting items that landed in my in-box during that time. One of my favorites is this Supreme Court decision in an ERISA case, which essentially holds that a party cannot wait for
Thoughts on Heimeshoff v. Hartford Life & Accident Insurance
The more I read yesterday’s Supreme Court’s decision in Heimeshoff v. Hartford Life & Accident Insurance, the more I return to the same position I expressed when the case was argued: that what the rule that is imposed by the Court turns out to be is much less important than that we actually have
Sprint(ing) Right to Federal Court to Protect Plans Against Preempted State Action
You know I think all things are about ERISA, and ERISA is about everything, don’t you? And of course, my view on this is even somewhat logical, and not just an outgrowth of my own personal interests. If you walk, talk, have health insurance, invest for retirement, have a pension or, even more so, work
Public Pensions After Detroit and Stockton
Well, returning briefly to my series on municipal bankruptcies – you really can’t write regularly about pensions in this day and age without addressing, even if unwillingly, that topic – the NY Times has a very interesting article on Stockton, California’s effort to leave bankruptcy, by basically shorting bondholders while leaving the ever rising pension
Who Is the Proper Defendant In an ERISA Denial of Benefits Claim? The First Circuit Has an Answer
I enjoyed this post on a fundamental question in ERISA denial of benefit litigation, namely which of the many entities involved with a plan – employer, plan sponsor, fiduciary, claim administrator, insurer, and so on – is a proper defendant to such a claim. As the post points out, correctly, there is some ambiguity on
Should the DOL Further Regulate Derisking?
You know, I was just going to tweet about this article, but I realized I had too much to say on this to be limited to 140 characters (I always have too much to say to be limited to 140 characters, but I often cut myself off at that number anyway, or else I could
AAA Arbitrations Now Include an Appeal Process for Complex Commercial Disputes
Years of experience litigating in the federal courts on the one hand, and arbitrating before the AAA on the other, have left me skeptical of the idea that arbitration is somehow preferable to the courts for resolving complex business disputes. My own experience is that, for those types of cases, arbitration is often not less
Putting Limits on Patent Trolling: An Infringement Litigator’s Perspective
The whole question of patent trolling, and the concern over it, is an issue that has gnawed at me for some time, having defended small companies against patent infringement claims by competing manufacturers and having prosecuted licensing disputes on behalf of non-manufacturing, but inventive, patent holders. My latest bugaboo on this topic is the massive
Why Amara’s Expansion of Remedies Matters Now, But Not So Much in the Long Term
My small group of dedicated twitter followers know I was live tweeting last week from ACI’s ERISA Litigation conference in New York, at least for the first day of the conference. Tweeting allowed me to pass along ideas from the speakers and my own thoughts on their points in real time, which was, frankly, a
Cyber Insurance for Cyber Risks
I have maintained a healthy interest in cybercrimes, cyber risks and related liability exposures, for at least two reasons central to the topics of this blog. The first is that, other than credit card companies, probably no one holds more protected personal information than the entities involved with ERISA plans, from health insurers to mutual