A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Fifth Circuit heard oral arguments in the federal government's appeal of a U.S. District Court judge's ruling invalidating Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which bans healthcare discrimination. The case is Neese v. Becerra, case number 23-10078, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. During oral arguments, the appellate panel appeared Read More

Congress passed the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 to encourage workers to save for retirement. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently issued additional guidance on various provisions of the SECURE 2.0 Act in the form of IRS Notice 2024-2. Much of this guidance focuses on optional features that employers have been reluctant to utilize without further guidance from the IRS. De Minimis Financial Incentive Read More

Bristol SL Holdings Inc. (“Bristol”), a holding company and successor-in-interest for Sure Haven, a now-bankrupt drug and alcohol treatment center, recently urged a panel of the Ninth Circuit to overturn the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of insurance giant Cigna. Bristol sued Cigna in 2019, claiming that it violated the terms of its health plan when it failed to pay more than $8 million in claims Read More

Insurance Services Offices Inc. (ISO), an actuarial and underwriting company, has agreed to pay $4 million to settle a proposed class action lawsuit filed by ex-employees concerning its 401(k) Savings and Employee Stock Ownership Plan. The former workers alleged that ISO charged them excessive fees and failed to monitor the plan’s investments in violation of ERISA. The case is Peterson et al. v. Insurance Services Read More

The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments in Muldrow v. City of St. Louis. The Court’s decision in Muldrow will determine whether an involuntary job transfer can constitute illegal discrimination in some cases. The main inquiry during oral arguments focused on whether tangible harm is necessary to prove discrimination. Examples of tangible harm include less pay, less favorable hours, or a lower rank.  In Read More

In Steigleman v. Symetra Life Ins. Co., 2023 WL 7413668 (D. Ariz. 2023), a court considered whether a package of various welfare benefit insurance policies an individual business owner arranged for herself and her employees was subject to ERISA. Ultimately, the court concluded that the business owner’s involvement in the package of insurance policies constituted an “ongoing administrative scheme” that made it subject Read More

In Johnson v. City of Kewanee, 2023 WL 8091963 (C.D. Ill. 2023), a married couple filed suit after the city fired them for allegedly stealing data and deleting over 55,000 files from the city computer system. The couple claimed that the city failed to provide COBRA election notices as required by law. In response, the city alleged that since the employees had committed “gross misconduct” in stealing and deleting Read More

A Georgia federal court recently dismissed an ERISA proposed class action suit filed by former Inland Fresh Seafood Corp. of America Inc. workers concerning alleged mismanagement of the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). The judge granted the motions to dismiss from Inland, its ESOP committee, a group of company executives, and the trustee of the company ESOP based on the plaintiffs’ failure to exhaust their Read More

United Behavioral Health (UBH) and the Alcatel-Lucent Medical Expense Plan, an employee health plan now owned by Nokia, have filed a petition for a writ of certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court. They are seeking to overturn a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirming Utah’s court ruling against them for failing to cover a middle school student’s inpatient mental health treatment and Read More

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Hilton Hotels’ petition for certiorari seeking review of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that reinstated retirement plan participants’ request for class certification in an Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) case. The case is Hilton Hotels Retirement Plan et al. v. Valerie White et al., case number 23-166, U.S. Supreme Court. A panel of Read More