PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Can Employers Impose a Health Insurance Surcharge on Plan Participants Not Vaccinated for COVID-19?
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas issued its written decision in Shipp v. Central States Manufacturing, Inc. on July 5, 2024, declining to dismiss the case against Central States Manufacturing Inc....more
Multi-employer plan participants involved in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) class action lawsuit against Horizon Actuarial Services LLC (Horizon), a national retirement services firm, have entered...more
On January 24, 2022, in a rare, unanimous 8-0 decision (Justice Barrett recused herself from the case), the Supreme Court of the United States (the “Supreme Court”) vacated a Seventh Circuit affirmation of the dismissal of...more
In Hughes v. Northwestern University, current and former participants in Northwestern University's defined-contribution retirement plans filed litigation on behalf of the plans' participants asserting that the University, its...more
Just this month, the Supreme Court issued its much anticipated decision in Northwestern University, the first time the Court has been called upon to examine a lawsuit alleging that a 401(k) plan’s investment and fees were...more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments in Hughes v. Northwestern University, in which the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals had rejected claims that the fiduciaries of two defined contribution retirement plans at...more
As costly class action retirement plan litigation under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) proliferates, mandatory individual arbitration has become an increasingly appealing alternative for certain benefit...more
KEY TAKEAWAYS - ..Plan fiduciaries have a duty of prudence to independently evaluate on an ongoing basis investments offered in a plan’s menu of options and remove any imprudent ones. ..Plan participants’ ultimate...more
Fidelity Investments settled a class-action lawsuit regarding its own 401(k) plan for $28.5 million. The class-action case alleged that Fidelity breached its fiduciary responsibility to plan participants by including its...more
The warranty in the electronics business is gravy for the retailers who sell it. You’ll be surprised how many people pay $20 to get a warranty on a $100 Blu-Ray player. When Best Buy was going national, they advertised how...more
While many of us in the retirement plan world were publicizing a class action lawsuit against a $9 million, apparently the plaintiffs had a change of heart. The case was Damberg et al v. LaMettry’s Collision Inc. and the...more
Avoiding The “Bumps” Of Being A Retirement Plan Provider - I’m a big fan of business history and every successful company that has ever been founded has had a few bumps along the way. For example, Apple almost went out...more
The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of a retirement plan’s claims against a company with whom the plan had contracted to provide the plan’s investment options. The holding in McCaffree...more