ERISA Violation Legal News Articles & Interviews

Oakland, CA Rollins v. Dignity Health, a nearly nine-year old ERISA lawsuit that has been moving through the federal court system since 2013, may be one step closer to settling. The Northern District of California has preliminarily approved a deal with the addition of an additional sub-class of plaintiffs. The same court rejected proposed settlement agreements twice before on a variety of grounds. This is further toward resolution than the parties have gotten before.

Birmingham, AL On September 21, the District Court for the Northern District of Alabama denied AT&T’s motion to dismiss Roy Robinson’s ERISA lawsuit. Robinson v. AT&T Services, Inc alleged that the company fired Robinson to avoid paying him severance benefits. AT&T claimed that he had failed to exhaust internal company remedies before filing his lawsuit. The court’s decision does not address the merits of Robinson’s claim. It simply permits Robinson to proceed to settlement negotiations or to trial.

Kansas City, MO On September 24 in Lipari-Williams v. Missouri Gaming Co., the District Court for the Western District of Missouri put off a decision about whether to grant class action certification to a group of casino workers who allege that they were overcharged for their health coverage based on their tobacco use. Their wage and benefit plan lawsuit alleges that the premium surcharge assessed under Argosy Riverside Casino’s insurance plan did not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The court granted certification to workers who brought wage claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act and Missouri state law but held off on the ERISA claims.

Miami, FL  On August17, three former participants in the Baptist Health South Florida, Inc. 403(b) Employee Retirement Plan (BHSF Plan) sued plan fiduciaries for breaching their duty of loyalty and prudence to participants and beneficiaries by paying “astronomical” management fees. The named plaintiffs in the ERISA lawsuit seek to represent more than 23,500 current and former participants.

Los Angeles, CA On July 9, Tim Alders, formerly an Executive Recruiter for YUM Brands Inc. and Taco Bell Corp. filed an ERISA lawsuit alleging that the fast-food conglomerates deprived him of pension and other benefits by deliberately misclassifying him as an independent contractor, rather than an employee. Tim Alders v. YUM, Inc. is neither a standard-issue misclassification lawsuit (many of which are brought by hourly-wage workers, cheated of California wage protections) or a variation of now-familiar ERISA fiduciary breach action. Rather, it is creative combination of the two. The lawsuit makes painfully clear how much long-term contractors (even the well-paid ones) lose when they are paid as casual workers.

  

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.