People with thin skins – or who can’t laugh at themselves – shouldn’t write blogs. I got a good chuckle out of this over my morning coffee this morning.
The Lessons of the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Act’s $400 Million Shortfall
There’s a lot to be said about the preemption issues raised by state health insurance mandates and the assumptions that underlie the beliefs of those who argue that ERISA preemption should not be allowed to prevent states from experimenting with acts intended to remedy the problem of the uninsured. Articles like this one here,
Establishing Status as a Top Hat Plan in the First Circuit
At long last and after much effort, I think we may have succeeded in converting S.COTUS, the anonymous blogger on all things First Circuit at Appellate Law & Practice, into an ERISA hobbyist. How else to explain his (her?) expansive and insightful post yesterday on the First Circuit’s analysis of top hat plans in
The Governance of Retirement Plans in the Aftermath of the Subprime Meltdown
Fellow blogger Susan Mangiero and I are quoted extensively in a very interesting article, available here, in the January issue of the Institutional Real Estate Letter. The article, titled Investing in Good Governance, focuses on one of – if not the only – potential silver linings in the whole subprime mortgage mess, namely the
Supreme Court to Weigh In on Structural Conflicts of Interest
I suggested some time ago that the Supreme Court looked poised to weigh in on some of the more tempestuous ERISA issues floating around the circuit courts of appeal, and there is probably no single issue that has raised more hackles than the question of so-called structural conflicts of interest, which exists when the administrator
Niche Insurance and Government Investigations
I had two different, perhaps more substantive things in line to talk about today, but I think I am going to push them back to later in the week, to instead pass along a highly entertaining article (at least to people who really like the ins and outs and oddities of the insurance industry) that
Insurance Coverage, Tuberculosis, and that Guy on the Plane
You see, everything at the end of the day is about insurance. Risk sharing that allows smaller businesses to move forward with operations, plaintiffs’ decisions over who has enough insurance to warrant suing, even the economic dislocations of climate change – everything comes back to the insurance industry. Here’s a great example, and an amusing
Researching Pension Related Litigation
Dying is easy, comedy is hard? No, ERISA is hard. I tell people all the time that there is almost no such thing as a simple answer to an ERISA related question, or at least no such thing as a straightforward answer. There are entire chapters in ERISA treatises dedicated to the seemingly, but
And in NFL News . . .
Here’s an interesting little case out of the Fourth Circuit this week concerning what, at this point, must be the world’s most famous long term disability plan, namely the NFL’s Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan. This plan has been the subject of much media commentary over the past few years, as former players
The Meaning of Arbitrary and Capricious Review
A colleague – who, to protect the innocent, shall remain nameless (sort of a blog witness protection program) – passed along this remarkable decision out of the Fourth Circuit this month, Evans v. Eaton Corporation Long Term Disability Plan. The decision is an elegant and sustained defense of the granting of discretion to administrators