Sorry, couldn’t resist – Bill being William Kennedy and Liv Kennedy being the named beneficiary in yesterday’s Supreme Court opinion, Kennedy v. Plan Administrator for DuPont Savings and Investment Plan. After reading the opinion itself last night, I thought I would add a couple of comments to my initial impressions of the opinion, which
Employee Benefit Plans
Kennedy v. Plan Administrator for DuPont Savings and Investment Plan
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Here’s the early word on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kennedy v. Plan Administrator for DuPont Savings and Investment Plan, which revolved around the issue of divorce decrees, the QDRO requirements of ERISA, and whether – in the absence of a valid QDRO – a plan administrator can rightly just pay proceeds to an…
The Trend Lines in ERISA Litigation
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Disclosure of Information: Where Securities Law and ERISA Diverge
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Cool, what a nice treat to me for the first real workday of the New Year. I have always wanted a reason to link to the Harvard Law School Corporate Governance blog because, well, it just sounds so impressive (that plus it’s a really good read on all things corporate), and one of their contributors…
On the Scope of the Attorney Client Privilege In ERISA Litigation
By Stephen Rosenberg on
This really isn’t an instance of logrolling (or blogrolling, as the case may be), I promise, even though Roy Harmon’s post that I am passing along here refers to me and my electronic discovery post a few times; the subject of Roy’s post got my attention and led me to read it long before I…
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…
Some More Thoughts on the Primacy of the ERISA Plan Document
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Judge Gertner of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts has an interesting, if brief, ruling that is just out granting a motion to dismiss a severance pay claim under an ERISA governed plan. What caught my eye about it relates back to this post I wrote a few weeks ago, in…
The First Circuit on ERISA Standing
Very interesting case out of the First Circuit the other day on the question of whether former employees satisfy ERISA standing requirements with regard to defined contribution plans. Short answer is they do, but the Court’s analysis and discussion is an interesting open field run across a range of issues that are both explicit and…
Promises, Promises . . .
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Rob Hoskins over at the always interesting ERISABoard has an interesting story about a Second Circuit decision that essentially says “too bad” to a plan participant’s waiver/estoppel theory seeking benefits. The story is consistent with what seems to be a trend in which courts frequently fall back to the terms of the actual plan to…
Life Is An ERISA Carnival, Believe It or Not
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Employee Benefit Plans
By the way, I meant to mention this on Monday, but a million different fires that had to be put out got in the way, so I’ll mention it today instead: Suzanne Wynn’s ERISA carnival from this past weekend surveys and provides links to a truly interesting range of posts on ERISA related issues. I’d…