By: Amanda Sonneborn and John Duke
In Shaver v. Siemens Corporation, Nos. 10-4147, 10-4279, 10-4791, 10-4792 (February 29, 2012), the Third Circuit overruled a lower court decision and held that former Westinghouse Electric Corp. employees were not entitled to permanent job separation pension benefits from Siemens Corporation. The Court based its decision on two…
By: Ian Morrison
On March 16, 2012, the Ninth Circuit ruled that two plan participants had no remedy for an allegedly faulty Summary Plan Description (“SPD”). Skinner v. Northrop Grumman Retirement Plan B, No. 10-55161 (9th Cir. March 16, 2012). The two participants claimed additional pension benefits because the SPD did not adequately…
By: Ian Morrison, Alexis Hawley and Sam Schwartz-Fenwick
On March 2, 2012, in Schultz v. Aviall, Inc. Long Term Disability Plan (Case No. 11-2889), the Seventh Circuit held that two private disability insurance plans may reduce payouts by the amount a participant’s children receive in Social Security benefits as a result of the…
By: Ronald Kramer and James Goodfellow
A recent decision from the Southern District of Ohio, Gelesky v. AK Steel Corp. et. al, Case No. 1:10-cv-899, (S.D. Ohio, November 30, 2011), dismissed as time barred a putative class action in which plaintiff, a participant in his former employer’s cash balance pension, alleged that the Plan’s…
By: Ed Cerasia and Sam Schwartz-Fenwick
On November 17, 2011, the U.S. District Court of the Western District of New York affirmed the reasonableness of a fiduciary decision in Conkright v. Frommert, 00-cv-6311L. This ruling followed the remand of this matter from the Supreme Court.
The case involved claims by several employees who had…
By: Sheryl Skibbe, Kathleen Cahill Slaught and Sam Schwartz-Fenwick
Recently, in Cyr v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., Nos. 07-56869, 08-55234 (9th Cir. June 22, 2011), the Ninth Circuit ruled that in an action for benefits brought pursuant to Section 502(a)(1)(B) of ERISA, entities other than the plan, plan administrator, or trustee can…
By: Mark Casciari and Ada Dolph
On an issue it described as “undecided,” the Second Circuit held on November 3, 2011 that a pensioner’s ERISA Section 502(a)(3) claim of an underpayment of benefits under an ERISA plan accrues “when there is enough information available to the pensioner to assure that he knows or reasonably should…
By: Fredric S. Singerman, Violet Borowski and Sam Schwartz-Fenwick
In Stephens v. U.S. Airways Group, 644 F.3d 437 (D.C. Cir. 2011), plaintiffs were members of a defined benefit plan which allowed participants to receive their benefits in the form of a single lump sum or an annuity. Plaintiffs elected to take their benefits…
By: Mark Casciari and Barbara Borowski
In Hakim v. Accenture United States Pension Plan, Case No. 08-cv-3682 (U.S. Dist. Ct. N.D. Ill.), plaintiff filed a lawsuit for additional pension benefits for himself and a purported class claiming that he did not receive proper notice of a Plan amendment that reduced his benefit accruals, in…
