Current Employment

On Monday, the Supreme Court rendered its decision in Kennedy v. Plan Administrator for DuPont Savings and Investment Plan, in which it ruled that a plan administrator must act in accordance with plan documents in determining who is a proper beneficiary under a plan even though that beneficiary previously waived his/her rights to a benefit under the plan via divorce decree.

The Seventh Circuit’s recent decision in Williams v. Interpublic Severance Pay Plan, No. 07-3146 (dec. April 29.2008) seems straightforward enough. It’s an ERISA case. It’s not very sexy.
But buried in there, underneath the actual legal analysis, are a couple of things worth mentioning.
1. Easterbrook Schools the Academics?Judge Easterbrook focuses the first part of [...]

Clearly a statement about the overuse of acronyms, the Supreme Court has denied certiorari in a case between the American Association of Retired Persons and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The AARP petitioned after the 3th Circuit upheld a Commission rule that employers can offer reduced healthcare to older workers and retirees once they are Medicare-eligible, [...]

In case you (we) missed it…
The jobs outlook keeps getting worse, the NLRB only has 2 members, TV is slowly coming back (with the right contract), it’s not a great time to be looking for a legal legal job (which is super), and the Supreme Court* decided that 401(k) participants were actually entitled to their [...]

In a much-awaited decision just released, all 9 Supreme Court Justices have agreed that plan beneficiaries (regular joes like you and me) are able to file suit under ERISA to recover money we would have had if the administrators had followed our instructions.
Prior to the LaRue holding, most courts agreed that ERISA limited suits to [...]