ERISA Violation Legal News Articles & Interviews

Atlanta, GA On April 15, plaintiffs in Pizarro v. The Home Depot asked U.S. District Judge Steven D. Grimberg to recuse himself because of his association with the Chamber of Commerce, which had filed an amicus curiae brief in support of The Home Depot in 2021. The $140 million class action ERISA lawsuit was assigned to Judge Grimberg on March 4 of this year only after Judge William M. Ray II, who had previously presided over the case, recused himself because he was about to inherit Home Depot stock. This is the fourth re-assignment sought by the plaintiffs.

Evansville, IN In December 2020, Alcoa USA Corp. retirees brought an ERISA lawsuit in the Southern District of Indiana to block Alcoa’s announced plan to change the way in which it provided collectively bargained retiree health benefits. The changes at issue in Kaiser v. Alcoa USA Corp. (originally captioned Simpkins v. Alcoa USA Corp.) became effective in 2021 and affect roughly 3,000 retirees and spouses. They were made unilaterally by Alcoa, apparently without negotiating with the workers’ collective bargaining representative.

Newark, NJ On March 23, the Trustees of the Teamsters Pension Trust Fund of Philadelphia and Vicinity filed a lawsuit in federal court in New Jersey, alleging that UPS had failed to make required contributions to the pension and welfare funds for 2015. The ERISA lawsuit seeks nearly $300,000 in unpaid contributions to the two plans plus attorneys’ fees and other costs.

Charlotte, NC Large independent bottler, Coca-Cola Consolidated Inc., has agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle a class-action breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit that could have involved thousands of plan participants. The ERISA lawsuit was originally brought in 2020 by two participants in the Coca-Cola Consolidated, Inc. 401k Plan. Cheyenne Jones v. Coca-Cola Consolidated Inc. alleges that the plan’s administrative committee breached its fiduciary duty to participants by failing to monitor unreasonable fees and the poor performance of a risky investment option.

St. Paul, MN The U.S. Department of Labor has announced an agreement to settle Walsh v. Reliance Trust Co. that will restore nearly $9.4 million to participants in the Kurt Manufacturing Company Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). The ERISA lawsuit alleged that plan fiduciaries caused the ESOP to buy all the outstanding company stock for nearly $10 million more than it was worth. The sellers of the stock included company directors and the chairman of the board. The DOL claimed that the sellers either knew or should have known that the price was significantly inflated.

Madison, WI On December 15, the District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin agreed that plaintiffs in a lawsuit against UMR, the benefits administrator for employer-sponsored UnitedHealth insurance plans, could proceed as a class. As many as 1,600 individuals may ultimately be included in ERISA lawsuit. This appears to have weighed heavily in the Court’s decision that Berceanu v. UMR, Inc. could proceed as a class action lawsuit.

Kalamazoo, MI Bronson Healthcare and participants in the Bronson Healthcare Group, Inc. 403(b) Tax Sheltered Matching Plan have agreed in principle to settle a proposed class action ERISA lawsuit. The lawsuit focused on the fiduciaries’ decision to include the actively-managed Fidelity Freedom Fund in the plan’s investment portfolio. Details of the proposed settlement have not been disclosed.

Miami, FL  On November 23, the University of Miami and participants in five of its retirement plans agreed to settle proposed class action ERISA lawsuit. The agreement provides for $1.85 million and structural safeguards to protect participants’ retirement savings in the future. The university and the plans' fiduciaries have agreed not to increase current fees for recordkeeping services in the three years after the settlement effective date. As an additional safeguard, the university will also retain an independent fiduciary.

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.