Benefit Litigation

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Wow, QDROs (otherwise known as qualified domestic relations orders) are all the rage these days, aren’t they? QDROs concern the intersection of divorce/family law and ERISA governed benefit plans, in particular retirement plans. As a general rule, a QDRO is a court order in a state divorce proceeding that, if it meets certain requirements, has…

In the First Circuit, the proper party defendant in an action concerning ERISA benefits is the party that controls administration of the plan; in other circuits, that’s not so plain. The question to which this is the answer is, who do you sue to recover benefits due under an ERISA governed plan. Here’s a timely…

Lots going on, lots to talk about. Let’s start with this one, which, coincidentally, allows me to kill two birds with one stone. You may recall that some time back I mentioned that I had come across two interesting blogs that I wanted to pass along, one of which was The Float, covering primarily…

A couple of notes on cases today. Before the holidays, I posted about the First Circuit’s decision in Gillis, concerning an administrator’s discretion in calculating possible pension payments and how the discretionary authority granted to the administrator drove the conclusion that a challenge to the pension calculations would not be upheld in the courts.…

Oddly, this appears to be “calculating benefits” week among the courts of the First Circuit. In addition to the LeBlanc case I discussed in the last post, the First Circuit just ruled on a case involving a challenge to the calculation of pension benefits. Just as in the LeBlanc case, where a district court found…

Interesting case out of the United States District Court for the District of Maine the other day, concerning a challenge by a plan participant to how his long term disability payments were calculated. The court essentially found that, since deferential review applied, the administrator’s calculation method could not be challenged, since it was a reasonable…

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

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There’s an interesting, if brief, ERISA case out of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts decided last week that enforced a suicide exclusion in an employer provided supplemental life insurance program. The court found that the evidence in the administrative record supported the administrator’s determination that the employee had committed suicide…