In Buford v. General Motors, L.L.C., case number 4:16-CV-14465-TGB-MKM, the U.S. District Court of Michigan ruled that General Motors violated COBRA election notice requirements when it failed to timely provide an employee with a COBRA election notice upon his retirement. As a result, General Motors was subject to statutory penalties due to violating federal law.    Buford retired from General Motors on Read More

U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos granted class status to tens of thousands of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ex-employees in an ERISA suit related to mismanagement of its employee 401(k) plan. In support of its motion to certify the class, Falberg also pointed to other courts which recently have certified ERISA classes of retirement plan participants suing financial services providers for unfairly promoting proprietary Read More

A North Carolina federal judge found that Aetna Life Insurance Co. abused its discretion and violated ERISA in underpaying and denying claims for coverage for two mental health facilities in Texas. In doing so, Aetna violated the terms of the Bank of America Group Benefits Program and its medical necessity criteria.  Alan R. and J.R., beneficiaries of the health plan, filed suit against Aetna in April 2020. J.R., Read More

In Wachala et al. v. Astellas US LLC et al., case number 1:20-cv-03882, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Astellas employees sued their employer and the retirement plan’s investment manager, Aon Investments USA Inc. The employees claim that Aon violated ERISA by selecting its own investment trusts as plan options. In addition, they point out that Aon replaced better-performing funds with its Read More

The Tri-Agencies – the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Treasury – published their first annual report on compliance with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA), as amended by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA). Although the 2022 MHPAEA Report to Congress stated that the Tri-Agencies had issued a preliminary determination of Read More

In the first court decision since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hughes v. Northwestern University et al., case number 19-1401, a Georgia federal district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in declining to dismiss their complaint concerning costly 401(k) plan fees and underperforming funds. In Goodman v. Columbus Reg’l Healthcare Sys., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13489 (M.D. Ga. Jan. 25, 2022), participants in Read More

In Hughes v. Northwestern University et al., case number 19-1401, Supreme Court of the United States, the high Court unanimously vacated and remanded the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The Supreme Court found that the lower court had erred in finding that the ultimate decision-making authority resting in the retirement plan participants was sufficient to excuse the allegedly imprudent Read More

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently affirmed a federal district court’s grant of summary judgment to Allstate Insurance Company in Klaas v. Allstate Ins. Co., 2021 U.S App. LEXIS 38473 (11th Cir. Dec. 28, 2021). In that case, retired Allstate employees sued in a consolidated ERISA class action suit over Allstate’s decision to stop paying premiums on retirees’ life insurance policies. As Read More

Plan sponsors may consider adding three different types of defensive provisions to their retirement plans to help cut down on the number of participants filing claims alleging violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). These defensive provisions can include claims procedure requirements, plan limitation periods, mandatory arbitration clauses, and class action waiver and venue provisions. All Read More

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently issued its decision in Pharm. Care Mgmt. Ass'n. v. Wehbi, 2021 WL 5355916 (8th Cir. 2021), after reconsidering its prior ruling on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court. The Eighth Circuit reversed course from the prior ruling and concluded that ERISA did not preempt a North Dakota state law that governed relations between pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers Read More