I have to admit I have never been to Oklahoma. I am not, however, afflicted with the New Yorker’s view of the world and do in fact know where Oklahoma is on a map (I have also been to states that border it, if that counts). Either way though, the next time you have to
Attorney Fee Awards
The Future After Hardt
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Attorney Fee Awards
Well, everybody and their mother’s lawyer has an article, blog post or client advisory memo out on the Hardt case, and I suspect that is because, frankly, its about as easy a Supreme Court decision to understand as you can find. What’s it hold? Procedural victory requiring remand of an ERISA denied benefit claim is…
Hardt, A Unanimous Supreme Court, and the Perfect Example of Why Remand Is Enough of a Win to Support an Award of Attorneys’ Fees
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Attorney Fee Awards
I posted recently on the Supreme Court’s consideration in Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance of the question of just how much success on the merits is necessary to trigger a plan participant’s right to an award of attorneys’ fees, and discussed the fact that requiring an outright and complete win by the plan participant…
What’s a Good ERISA Lawyer Worth, Anyway?
By Stephen Rosenberg on
That’s what this case here begins to answer, at least in the Boston market and in the context of the fees that should be awarded to a prevailing plaintiff. This case was intended to be the next in the series of recent Massachusetts/First Circuit centric decisions I started writing two weeks ago, and haven’t returned…
When Does Little Recovery Justify a Large Fee Award?
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Attorney Fee Awards
This is a little item about a large award of attorney’s fees in an ERISA case to a prevailing plaintiff in a case involving only several hundred dollars in actual recovered damages, but it caught my eye for a couple of reasons. Factually, as the story goes, the court awarded some $45,000 in attorney’s fees…
On Attorneys Fees and Hecker
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Honestly, I have spent a week scratching my head, off and on, over the Supreme Court granting cert to consider the standards governing when attorneys fees can be awarded in an ERISA case, particularly when they denied cert shortly thereafter in Hecker, which presented the opportunity to address the much more substantive issue…
It Depends on What the Meaning of the Word Prevail Is
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Attorney Fee Awards
I have been swamped for awhile, but have wanted to post on this case, by Judge Young of the U.S. District Court here, for almost as long, and I want to get it up today while I have a few minutes of daylight, because I think it is a very important opinion for practitioners. Long…
A Thanksgiving Week Feast
Some of the more prolific bloggers manage to be prolific by posting short notes on various topics of interest written by others, which isn’t my usual style. But over the past week or so I have managed to back up a good stack of things that I have wanted to talk about in detail, but…
LaRue, The Postscript
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Remember the grave concern in different quarters about whether the Supreme Court’s ruling in LaRue would lead to a flood of litigation? Turns out it didn’t even do so in the LaRue case itself, which, now on remand at the trial court level, has been voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiff to avoid the expense…
Does David Have to Pay Goliath if the Slingshot Misses Its Mark?
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Fee shifting provisions, such as the one in the ERISA statute, that authorize a court to award attorney’s fees to a prevailing party, are facially neutral, and allow for an award in favor of the prevailing party, whomever that may be, and against the losing party, again whomever that may be. But should attorney’s fees…