Interesting decision out of the First Circuit yesterday, in the case of Denmark v. Liberty Life Assurance Company, that focused on the proper standard of review to apply in cases in which the administrator both decides the claim for benefits and is also the party that will have to pay the benefits if the
Problems in Long Term Care Insurance and Lessons for the Rest of Us
I criticized the New York Times a couple weeks back about an article on the NFL’s pension and disability plans, basically because the article was animated by an underlying ignorance of recent legal events concerning those plans. It may, perhaps, have been too much to expect that the reporter would have a full understanding of
Illusory Benefits and the Small Employer
I have written before, including here and here, about the elements that must exist for a particular employment benefit to fall under ERISA and be deemed part of an ERISA governed employee welfare benefit plan. The requirements that must be met can become problematic with small employers, where compensation and benefit packages are often
Novak and the National Law Journal
I guess this is me and the media week here at the blog. There is an excellent story in the National Law Journal this week on the Novak decision out of the Ninth Circuit, which I talked about here, in which the court allowed attachment of ERISA governed retirement benefits as part of criminal
Was it the Electronic Discovery Amendments to the Federal Rules or the Expensive Discovery Amendments?
I have discussed before electronic discovery and the corresponding amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and in particular the need to consider costs of the required discovery relative to the benefits to the requesting party. Personally, I am of the opinion that the scope of the rule changes combined with the massive changes
Three Out of Three Commentators Agree: Law Reviews Have Made Themselves Irrelevant
Well, I don’t know. Did I hit on something that was already percolating in the zeitgeist a few weeks ago when I addressed the increasing irrelevancy of law reviews in a post, or does someone at the New York Times read my blog? You will recall that, after having, as David Rossmiller pointed out, eaten
Mike Webster to Ted Johnson: Are the NFL and the New York Times Kidding?
I don’t want to turn this blog into a soapbox, and as someone who really likes newspapers, I also don’t want to join the Greek chorus of self-appointed media watchdogs that seems to make up much of the blogosphere. Some things, however, such as this article in the New York Times, call out for
Disgorgement, Directors and Officers Insurance and the Meaning of Loss
Ten, twenty years ago, insurance coverage litigation was predominately about broad issues and big ticket items, about the extent of insurance coverage across decades of policies for long term environmental pollution or for tens of thousands of asbestos related bodily injury claims. The actual coverage issues themselves tended to be of a big picture nature
Insurance Coverage for Pension Plan Fiduciaries
There is an interesting interrelationship between the two primary subjects of this blog, ERISA litigation and insurance coverage, and one that I had not really thought much about until Rick Shoff, who works with Mike Pratico over at CapTrust Financial Advisors, raised it in a conversation recently. As I have mentioned in the past,
Equitable Relief Under ERISA in the First Circuit Post-Sereboff
The district courts in the First Circuit have been so busy issuing ERISA related decisions recently that it has become difficult to find time to post on other things that I also want to talk about. That said, however, the District Court for the District of Maine just issued a remarkable opinion that I both