ERISA Violation Legal News Articles & Interviews

Wilmington, DE M.P. Moon will have another chance to persuade a Delaware federal court that DuPont and its corporate predecessors and successors cheated him and similarly situated retirees of thousands of dollars in pension benefits. His ERISA lawsuit describes years of misinformation, followed by internal procedural rules that protected DuPont from the necessity of correcting its own error.

New York, NY Jander v. Retirement Plans Committee of IBM, a long-running employee stock ownership lawsuit, settled on April 2, 2021 for $4.75 million. The attorneys who represented the retirement plan participants have now requested $1.4 million in fees for the latest Supreme Court phase of the case. In deciding whether to approve the fee, the Southern District of New York will consider the time and effort the lawyers expended.

Kalamazoo, MI On May 6, Susan Gleason and Candi Gabrielse filed a class action ERISA lawsuit against Bronson Healthcare Group Inc. in the Western District of Michigan. Gleason v. Bronson Healthcare is an example of increasingly distinctive subtype of breach of fiduciary duty lawsuits that focus on the relative cost and performance of two Fidelity investment funds, both of which were part of the Bronson Healthcare Group, Inc. 403(b) Tax Sheltered Matching Plan.

Miami, FL  On April 5, the four named plaintiffs in Santiago v. University of Miami asked the Southern District of Florida to certify a class of roughly 16,000 beneficiaries of and participants in the University of Miami Savings Plan. Their ERISA lawsuit alleges that the University breached its duties of loyalty and prudence by permitting the Plan to incur unreasonable and excessive administrative fees by failing to engage in an appropriate process designed to evaluate and monitor administrative expenses.

Dallas, TX On April 15, two participants in the Kimberly-Clark Corporation 401(k) & Profit Sharing Plan filed a class action ERISA lawsuit in the federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Seidner v. Kimberly-Clark Corp. alleges that plan fiduciaries violated ERISA by failing to monitor plan administrative expenses, thus wasting the participants’ retirement savings and depriving them of the opportunity for investment growth over time.

Cincinnati, OH  On March 23, the Sixth Circuit revived an ERISA lawsuit that alleges that Detroit Edison Co. misled plan participants about the benefits they could expect at retirement when the plan design was changed in 2002. The Appeals Court’s decision in Nolan v. Detroit Edison Co. gives the participants a fresh opportunity to show that the disclosure to participants about the plan’s conversion to a cash balance plan failed to meet basic ERISA requirements. Nolan seeks class action status.

Detroit, MI On March 4, The District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan held that Great American Fidelity Insurance Co. (Great American) could renew its argument that it should not be required to defend Stout Risius Ross (Stout) against a claim by Appvion Retirement Savings and Employee Stock Ownership Plan (Appvion ESOP). Great American Fidelity Insurance Co. v. Stout Risius Ross Inc., an insurance contract claim, is one piece of the fallout from the sprawling ERISA lawsuit that includes Appvion v. Buth. The facts are complicated.

Philadelphia, PA On March 8, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted class action status to plaintiffs in Boley v. Universal Health Services. The ERISA lawsuit claims that fiduciaries of the Universal Health Services Inc. Retirement Savings Plan mismanaged the 401k plan in violation of ERISA.

Chicago, IL On January 25, the Northern District of Illinois denied Triad Manufacturing’s attempt to force ESOP participants to individually arbitrate their claims of fiduciary self-dealing. The ERISA lawsuit, James Smith v. Board of Directors of Triad Manufacturing Inc., alleged that the Board of Directors caused the plan to buy Triad stock at an inflated price, harming retirement savers for the benefit of individual board members who were also, not coincidentally, the sellers of the stock. The Court held that plan participants may now continue to the merits of their fiduciary breach lawsuit on a class-wide basis.

Los Angeles, CA  On October 7, Patricia Klawonn filed an ERISA lawsuit against the Board of Directors for the Motion Picture Industry Pension Plans in the District Court for the Central District of California. The lawsuit alleges that The Board breached its fiduciary duty under ERISA, citing as evidence “abysmal returns [that] are the product of a fundamentally flawed investment strategy.” The Board has moved to dismiss the lawsuit, citing fundamental flaws, including a statute of limitations problem.