A few more thoughts to round out my run of posts (you can find them here and here) on the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in Tibble. First of all, where does revenue sharing go as a theory of liability at this point? The Ninth Circuit essentially eviscerated that theory, and I doubt it has much
Class Actions
And the Ninth Circuit Swings Away at Tibble v. Edison . . .
Well, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed the District Court’s well-crafted opinion in Tibble v. Edison. I discussed the District Court’s opinion in detail in my article on excessive fee claims, Retreat From the High Water Mark. From a precedential perspective, as well as from the point…
Some Thoughts on Kirkendall v. Halliburton
I have passed along on Twitter (https://twitter.com/SDRosenbergEsq) some of the better reviews that have crossed my desk of the Second Circuit’s recent decision in Kirkendall v. Halliburton, Inc., in which the Court held that a plan participant did not have to exhaust administrative remedies in an ERISA plan where the plan document itself…
Lanfear, Home Depot and Moench
If you like an extended metaphor – and anyone who has read this blog for awhile knows I do – you should enjoy the Eleventh Circuit’s decision this week in Lanfear v Home Depot, adopting the Moench presumption and explaining exactly how it is to be applied in that circuit. What’s a better analogy…
On the Other Hand, There May Not Be Any Structural Impediments to Breach of Fiduciary Duty Class Actions in the Sixth Circuit
An astute and clearly knowledgeable reader passed along the point that the recent Sixth Circuit decision in Pfeil v. State Street Bank implicitly rejected the structural barriers to bringing class actions over fiduciary breaches that had been created by the developing case law in other circuits and which were discussed in my recent article, Structural…
The Dam Breaks: Tussey v. ABB
Tussey v ABB, Inc., an excessive fee and revenue sharing case decided on the last day of March after a full trial before the United States District Court for the District of Western Missouri, is a remarkable decision, imposing extensive liability for acts involving the costs of and revenue sharing for a major…
Structural Impediments to Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claims
As many of you know, I write a regular column on ERISA litigation for Aspen’s Journal of Pension Benefits, usually focused on whatever issue has my attention at the moment, although I try to balance that against what readers might have an interest in as well. When it came time to write my article for…