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

Tidal Wave! Landslide! Look out below!

Pick out the metaphor of your choice, because Unum just got taken out behind the woodshed by the Ninth Circuit and spanked hard. Frankly, the Ninth Circuit’s opinion is a rout in favor of the participant, and participants in general. In many ways, the case presented a perfect storm

So half the parties interpreting a possibly ambiguous plan term that is subject to discretionary review come out one way in reading the term, and the other two the other way. Who wins? Well, this is a trick question to some extent, because it doesn’t matter the numbers – all that matters is who gets

There have been a series of interesting ERISA decisions over the past several weeks out of the United States District Court for Massachusetts, whose Boston courthouse I can see through my office window as I type this post. The decisions have stacked up on my desk a little bit, like a leaning tower of paper.

This is interesting. I have written before on this blog, on numerous occasions, about courts sometimes engaging in a more searching level of discretionary review that, in essence, is not discretionary review at all, at least in the manner it has long been traditionally understood. The common belief, and applied in that way by many