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
Congressional Hearings on 401(k) Plan Fees and What They Mean for Plan Fiduciaries
Wow. Don’t think the heat is on for company 401(k) sponsors and other fiduciaries of employee retirement benefit plans who may not have done enough benchmarking and due diligence to make sure that mutual fund and advisor fees are as low as possible? Then take a look at this article out of the Washington Post
The Duty to Disclose Possible Exposures When Applying for Insurance Policies
Why do we have insurance coverage lawyers, and why, as Mark Mayerson has written, has “insurance-coverage law . . . developed over the last 20 years into a rarefied specialty practice”? Because when lawyers who don’t know their way around the subject get involved with insurance coverage, problems just pile up. A case
What Happens When Reimbursement of Overpaid Benefits Is Equitable for Purposes of ERISA, but Nonetheless Inequitable?
Here is an interesting little twist on the common scenario of a plan overpaying retirement benefits and then seeking reimbursement, as allowed under the plan’s terms, of the overpayment from the plan beneficiary. Normally, these cases are focused on whether the reimbursement qualifies as equitable relief that the fiduciary is allowed to pursue. In this
Animators at Law and Sophisticated Trial Graphics
I recently had a fun virtual meeting, by conference call and downloads, with Animators at Law, who produce 2D and 3D trial graphics, and in particular with Christine McCarey, a former in-house counsel and now the company’s national director of business development. I have been at this long enough to remember when trial graphics
Restitution, Anti-Alienation and ERISA
Although I am diligent about covering in this blog ERISA decisions coming out of the courts in the First Circuit, I also keep an eye on ERISA decisions elsewhere in the country and discuss them when there is something particularly interesting about them that catches my eye. The Ninth Circuit has just done exactly that,