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By: Mark Casciari and Barbara Borowski
The answer is — more than you might think.
On February 27, the Supreme Court issued two securities law decisions. In Amgen v. Connecticut Retirement Plan and Trust Funds, No. 11-1085 (February 27, 2013), the Supreme Court, 6-3, affirmed the Ninth Circuit’s decision in a Rule 10b-5 fraud-on-the-market misrepresentation…
By Mark Casciari and Sara Eber
On December 20, 2012, Judge Janet Bond Arterton of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut held that a class of 25,000 plaintiffs are entitled to benefits in addition to those provided by the terms of their cash balance benefit plan based on her reformation (rewriting)…
By: Sheryl Skibbe and Kathleen Cahill-Slaught,
A Massachusetts district court recently validated the long-standing view that ERISA provides limited remedies, and that some wrongs are simply and intentionally under the terms of the statute not actionable. In Altshuler v. Animal Hospitals Ltd., No. 1:11-cv-10901-RGS (D. Mass. Oct. 31, 2012), the district court…
By: Richard Loebl and Mark Casciari,
Another court has weighed in on the question whether ERISA provides a cause of action for contribution or indemnification among co-fiduciaries. In Guididas v. Community National Bank Corp., No. 8:11-cv-2545-T-30TBM (M.D. FL, 11/5/2012), the district court held that the “federal common law” under ERISA provides for…
By: Ian Morrison and Nadir Ahmed,
In Trustees of Sheet Metal Workers Int’l Ass’n Local No. 30 Vacation Fund v. Hopwood, S.D.N.Y., No. 7:09-cv-0588-ERR, Sept. 27, 2012, the District Court granted summary judgment in favor of a number of union benefit funds and found the Company’s CEO personally liable for the company’s failure…
By: Amanda Sonneborn and John Duke
In a decision that serves as a good reminder of the potential for individual liability for plan fiduciaries, the Southern District of New York recently concluded that a former Chief Executive Officer was personally liable for repayment of approximately $216,000 in unpaid benefit contributions. Trustees of the Sheet Metal…
By: Amanda Sonneborn and Meg Troy,
On August 20, 2012, the Sixth Circuit affirmed a district court’s decision that a third-party administrator breached its fiduciary duties to a number of employee benefit plan sponsors by paying its own expenses with funds that were supposed to pay participant claims despite language in the relevant contracts…
By: Mark Casciari and Barbara Borowski
In Stark v. Mars, Inc., No. 2:10-cv-642, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98791 (S.D. Ohio July 17, 2012), an ERISA pension plan participant asserted a claim for misrepresentation by plan fiduciaries about the amount of her pension benefits. Plaintiff was an employee of Mars until her voluntary resignation in…
By: Ian Morrison and Nadir Ahmed
In Bidwell v. University Medical Center, Inc., Case No. 11-5493, the Sixth Circuit found that plan fiduciaries are shielded from claims over investment losses where they transfer defined contribution accounts into a Qualified Default Investment Alternative (“QDIA”), after notice to the participant, even where the participant had previously…
