Benefit Litigation

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There may be nothing more fun than ERISA to a lawyer who likes to maneuver among innumerable rules, dodge endless traps, and work out the interaction of numerous potentially inconsistent statutory, regulatory and judge-made requirements. I stand guilty as charged. Indeed, if you were going to create a Myers-Briggs Inventory for the job heading “ERISA Lawyer,” the first question you would put in would ask if you liked civil procedure in law school, because if you don’t like substantive issues like standing, procedural issues like venue, or more run of the mill issues like the scope of discovery, you will never like being an ERISA litigator. Beyond that, if you don’t like a rules based environment, you almost certainly won’t like being a non-litigation ERISA lawyer, with its heavy engagement with express statutory requirements, a million or more regulations from multiple agencies, and constant engagement with the tax code.
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Continue Reading How Not to Sue an ERISA Governed Plan: Thoughts on the Ninth Circuit’s Ruling in DB Healthcare

So the Supreme Court, for the second time, has now taken a pass on ruling on whether ERISA plans can contain forum selection clauses. As this article notes, a number of courts have enforced forum selection clauses in ERISA-governed plans, essentially treating them the same in that context as they would be treated in an action involving a typical private contract, where parties are generally free to select a forum for their disputes.
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Continue Reading Are Forum Selection Clauses Valid Under ERISA?

2016 was the year that church plans went to the Supreme Court, excessive fee claims came to elite universities and the Department of Labor’s authority to alter its regulation of fiduciary conduct was challenged in multiple courts. Of course, stock drop litigation, excessive fee cases, and other assaults on the make up of 401(k) plans continued apace, even if they yielded the spotlight to flashier, more novel types of cases.
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Continue Reading The Year in Review: Looking Back at ERISA Litigation In 2016

So the other particularly fascinating item – to me, anyway – that popped up in my twitter feed while I was on vacation was this important decision by the Ninth Circuit, Demer v. IBM and MetLife, addressing whether (and, if so, how) the number of reviews done by, and compensation earned by, outside medical…

I wrote yesterday on the first complaint filed, in federal court in Texas, challenging the Department of Labor’s new fiduciary regulations, and then within hours, a second such suit was filed. The second suit is a more narrowly targeted action, brought by sellers of fixed annuities and charging that the Department of Labor, for various …

In the musical Hamilton, everyone from Aaron Burr to Hamilton’s wife, Eliza, asks why Hamilton always “writes like he’s running out of time,” and the lyrics assign various pop psychology rationales to his urgency. This morning, though, after listening to the soundtrack again, I realized the real reason – he’s a lawyer! He’s always on …

This is so simple, its brilliant, and so brilliant, its simple – or something like that. The “this” I am talking about is the idea of appointing a Chief Retirement Officer, or CRO, as is discussed – and proposed – in Steff Chalk’s article, “The Advent of the Chief Retirement Officer,” in the …

The good people at Fiduciary News gave me a soapbox, and I was happy to climb up on it. They interviewed me as part of their series of monthly interviews on ERISA and related topics, and I discussed ERISA litigation and a wide range of related issues. You can find the “Exclusive Interview: ERISA Attorney…

Two small notes today that I wanted to pass on. Each stuck in my mind as the possible foundation for a substantial blog post, but I have found that once items like this start to pile up in number, it can be quicker and more useful to get them out in a shorter post. Sports…