I promised awhile back that I would run more interviews at some point on this blog, and we return today to our – granted, somewhat sporadic – series of interviews with movers and shakers in the worlds of ERISA and insurance. What provoked me to get back into the interviewing business, which I noted before
Controlling Costs in Patent Infringement Litigation
I tried a patent infringement case to a jury last spring, and while I was quite pleased with the outcome, I left the experience very concerned about the tremendous cost of litigating patent infringement cases. Thinking back over the course of the litigation, I was able to identify some central principles for reigning in the
State Mandates and Health Insurance Pricing
Well now, this morning I came across this interesting post here, on the State Policy Blog, comparing health insurance pricing in one semi-unregulated state insurance market (Colorado) and in a state, Massachusetts, with a state mandate requiring health insurance. As you can see from the post, the numbers show pricing is significantly higher
Protecting Corporate Officers from Fiduciary Exposure
Here’s an interesting article on one particular aspect of ERISA breach of fiduciary duty cases, namely the targeting as defendants of executive officers of the company sponsoring a pension or 401(k) plan; the gist of the article is that there are tactical and psychological benefits that accrue to counsel representing plan participants when they name
Is It Just Plain Rational for Insurers to Pull Back from Coastal Markets?
Anyone interested in the topics of this blog is probably familiar with the media coverage of homeowners insurers raising rates and/or simply withdrawing from writing homeowners insurance in coastal regions, including not just in the traditional hurricane regions of the south but up through New England as well. Many stories are replete with sturm und
Looking Under the Hood of Pension Plan Investments
Word comes to me today from Susan Mangiero, who pens the Pension Risk Matters blog (that phrase reminds me just a little of one of my favorite move phrases of all time, “a lot of alliteration from anxious anchors”), that I am quoted in an interesting article by Liz Peek in the New
More on that Grand Irony Theory
Does the fact pattern below allow for a remedy under ERISA, particularly as the Sereboff/equitable relief line of cases has been interpreted in the First Circuit to date?
The plaintiff employee says that she purchased a life insurance policy on her husband through her employer’s group coverage. When her husband was dying, she resigned
Why ERISA?
You know, people often get bogged down when talking about ERISA with the limitations of the statute and the protections it provides on the individual level; that is, to an extent, what the hullabaloo about the LaRue case is about, as it concerns the question of whether investment losses in a 401(k) plan are actionable if they
Dickie Scruggs
The media is ablaze with discussion of this whole Dickie Scruggs indictment/bribery circus. I don’t expect I am going to have much to say about it – ever -on this blog; not to put on airs, but although insurance is in the title of this blog, I try to focus the subject matter on substantive