Seeking to resolve a rather lopsided circuit split, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court seem poised to support a requirement that employees alleging breach of fiduciary duty overcome a pleading-stage presumption that employee stock plan fiduciaries acted with prudence.

This column’s main mantra for appeals is to appeal from any decision, order or judgment which could reasonably be construed as “appealable.”

Recent guidance issued by the Department of Labor could trigger litigation over a new concern: whether private business owners with religious objections to gay marriage can be required to extend employment benefits to their employees’ same-sex spouses in states where such unions are not recognized.

It’s fair to assume Warren Hillman never intended that the proceeds of his federal employee life insurance policy would go to his ex-wife when he died unexpectedly in 2008.

11-1295 & 11-1427 Raybourne v. Cigna Life Insurance Co. of New York

11-3291 George v. Junior Achievement of Central Indiana, Inc.

10-3524 Schorsch v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co.

12-1230 Aschermann v. Aetna Life Ins. Co.

10-1136 Marantz v. Permanente Medical Group, Inc.

11-1112 Killian v. Concert Health Plan

Employee benefit plans could reduce long-term disability benefits by the amount of Social Security disability benefits received by the plan participants’ dependent children, the 7th Circuit has ruled in affirming judgment.

11-2889 Schultz v. Avaiall, Inc Long Term Disability Plan

10-3286 Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund v. Waste Management of Michigan, Inc.

In Wisconsin, the made-whole doctrine has provided the insured with a legal right to pursue money from a tortfeasor to cover his or her losses.

10-1521 Burns v. Orthotek, Inc., Employees’ Pension Plan and Trust

09-4081 & 10-1755 Loomis v. Exelon Corp.

Employment ERISA; attorney fees

Employment ERISA; offsets

Employment ERISA; class actions; attorney fees

Employment ERISA; estoppel

Employment ERISA

Employment ERISA

Employment ERISA

Employment ERISA; LMRA

Insurance ERISA; self-reported symptoms limitation The failure to include a self-reported symptoms limitation in the summary plan description (“SPD”) prevents an ERISA plan from relying on it to discontinue benefits. “Here, the SPD clearly sets out that long-term benefits will be discontinued after twenty-four months if a participant’s disability is due to mental illness or substance abuse. It does not, ...

Insurance ERISA

Employment ERISA; deference

Insurance ERISA; facility-of-payment clauses Where a life insurance policy contained a facility-of-payment clause, it did not violate ERISA for the insurer to pay the proceeds to the insured’s children. “Under the arbitrary and capricious standard, we overturn the administrator’s decision only where there is an absence of reasoning to support it. See Hess v. Reg-Ellen Machine Tool Corp., 423 F.3d ...

ERISA Equity Although ERISA does not give district courts authority to reform a pension plan, relief is authorized by sec. 502(a)(3), which allows a participant, beneficiary, or fiduciary “to obtain other appropriate equitable relief” to redress violations of ERISA “or the [plan’s] terms.” This Court has interpreted §502(a)(3)’s phrase “appropriate equitable relief” as referring to “‘those categories of relief’” that, ...

Securities ERISA; affiliated purchasers A corporation’s profit sharing plan cannot claim a share of the settlement of a securities fraud action. “[T]he Plan is an affiliate of Motorola and on this basis is excluded from the class, although we arrive at this conclusion by a slightly different analysis. The district court applied the ordinary meaning of the term ‘affiliate,’ but ...