I have an appeal pending at the First Circuit right now concerning the interpretation of top hat plans and, thus, with discretion being the better part of valor and all that, I am not going to write too much about this new top hat decision out of the Eighth Circuit. However, for anyone out there
Because I really like lawyering, I am pleased that I have had a very busy and productive February, full of client meetings, filings in courts in various jurisdictions, and interesting work. The drawback, though, is that it is now almost the end of the second month of 2025 and I still haven’t finished my countdown
Some things are just evergreen when it comes to ERISA, a point that is driven home whenever, as now, I publish my top ten most read blog posts of the prior year. The Supreme Court just returned, for about the umpteenth time, to the subject of excessive fee class action litigation and the question
This is a really good day to be returning to my countdown of the top ten most read blog posts of 2024, because just yesterday, the Supreme Court returned to a central issue in ERISA class action and excessive fee litigation: namely, what are the pleading standards and how can they be used
I don’t exactly understand why this particular post made it all the way up the rankings to be the sixth most read post on my blog in 2024, as substantively it isn’t anywhere near as interesting to me as most of the other posts in the top ten, which discuss more novel or esoteric
Story after story keep telling the same story – that class action litigation against ERISA plan sponsors and fiduciaries is a growth industry. Encore Fiduciary’s Daniel Aronowitz and Karolina Jozwiak have a great, data rich piece out in Planadvisor documenting this fact, and the legal media world is all atwitter about the latest new way
Continuing with my countdown of my top ten most read blog posts of 2024 – as chosen by you, the reader! – leads me today to one of my favorite topics, namely the increasing targeting of small (relatively speaking) ERISA plans by class action firms bringing suits alleging that the plans were too expensive. In
So two stories today give me a soapbox to address one aspect of ERISA class action litigation and the push back from plan sponsors and their fiduciary liability insurers against the costs imposed on them by this line of litigation. One story, which to protect the innocent I won’t otherwise identify, involves court approval of
I love these stories on big firms, who are used to billing by the hour, using contingency fee cases to boost the bottom line. When I say that, I am not taking pot shots or being sarcastic – instead, I appreciate the fact that, on a large scale, they are doing what smaller predominately billable
The Washington Post has a fascinating article today on the operation of the NFL’s disability claim system for addressing benefits due for neurological impacts from professional football. Although likely behind a paywall, the article is certainly worth a read. Its point is really that the system, which is the outcome of a negotiated class action