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Benefits
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April 12, 2024
Rash Of 401(k) Forfeiture Suits Approach First Hurdles
Several recent lawsuits challenging how employers use 401(k) forfeitures — which occur when a worker leaves before an employer's matching contributions fully vest — are approaching critical early tests, with rulings expected on dismissal bids in the coming months. Here, Law360 looks at how this area of Employee Retirement Income Security Act litigation has gained traction, and what to look out for next.
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April 11, 2024
Tech Co. Can't Knock Out Challenge To 401(k) Fees
A Missouri federal judge refused to toss a worker's suit accusing a technology company of wasting employees' retirement savings by charging their 401(k) plan excessive fees, ruling that he put forward enough proof showing similar plans snagged better deals.
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April 11, 2024
3 Firms Vie To Lead RTX Stockholder Suit Over Engine Cracks
Saxena White PA and Labaton Keller Sucharow LLP on Thursday sought appointments as co-lead counsel in pension fund lawsuits alleging RTX Corp.'s stock fell when it revealed that cracks in a subsidiary's jet engines cost billions to repair, with Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer LLP also seeking to lead the case for an individual investor.
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April 11, 2024
Fired Yellow Corp. Workers Can Proceed With Class Action
A Delaware bankruptcy judge on Thursday lent support to a group of laid off Yellow Corp. workers in their bid to bring a class action against the insolvent trucking company, saying he would recognize claims tied to the terminations brought by both union members and others.
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April 11, 2024
Ex-NFL Players Near Settlement In Race-Norming Benefits Suit
Two former players whose lawsuit accuses the NFL's disability benefit plans of awarding them lower benefits because they are Black told a Maryland federal court they have had "productive" meetings with the defendants and are near a settlement proposal.
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April 10, 2024
Milliman Tells Trial Judge It Has No Liability For 401(k) Losses
Milliman Inc. said its directors had a limited duty related to alleged risky investments in employee retirement plans because responsibilities were delegated to a committee, in response to the Seattle federal judge who questioned during a trial's closing arguments Wednesday why the board "really didn't do much of anything."
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April 10, 2024
Cleaning Co. To Pay $400K In H-2B Workers' Exploitation Suit
Mexican guest workers and a cleaning company that recruited them to work at a Colorado luxury hotel asked a federal judge on Wednesday to grant initial approval of a $400,000 settlement on claims that the company committed myriad wage and visa law violations and threatened to deport workers who complained.
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April 10, 2024
9th Circ. Doubts Calif.'s Standing In DOL Union Transit Fight
The Ninth Circuit appeared open Wednesday to restoring the U.S. Department of Labor's power to deny California transit funding because of a perceived conflict between state pension law and bargaining rights, focusing on the state's standing in a dispute that began between the DOL and a union.
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April 10, 2024
Former X Worker Can't Force Doc Release In Bonus Suit
A California federal judge refused to grant an ex-worker's request that the court decide whether X Corp. must provide employee bonus-related documents to its former chief financial officer before he sits for a deposition, chiding the former worker for not filing a proper request.
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April 10, 2024
Ohio Appeals Court Remands AFSCME Reinstatement Row
An Ohio appeals court sent back to a lower court an arbitration award dispute over a township's claim that a maintenance worker "abandoned his position," finding Wednesday that an arbitrator did had the power under a labor contract to order reinstatement and make the employee whole.
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April 10, 2024
ADP Agrees To Massive Class In Suit Over 401(k) Fees
ADP agreed to the certification of a class numbering more than 50,000 in a suit alleging the company failed to negotiate lower costs for its $7.8 billion employee retirement plan and funneled plan assets to a subsidiary, according to a filing in New Jersey federal court.
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April 10, 2024
Class Attys Seek Big Payday For $100M Pattern Energy Deal
Class attorneys are urging the Delaware Chancery Court to approve a $100 million settlement to end state and federal court litigation over Pattern Energy Group Inc.'s $6.1 billion go-private sale in 2020 and award them $26 million in fees for a deal they say is the largest of its kind in the Chancery's history.
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April 10, 2024
Musk Deposition Decision Put Off In Twitter Layoff Fight
A California federal judge deferred ex-Twitter employees' request to depose X Corp. owner Elon Musk until after other defendants gave their depositions in a suit alleging the company violated federal laws requiring advance warning of mass layoffs.
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April 09, 2024
Prime Healthcare Lacked Oversight Of 401(k) Plan, Judge Told
An attorney who specializes in Employee Retirement Income Security Act litigation testified on Tuesday as the first witness in a California bench trial for two certified classes claiming Prime Healthcare Services Inc. poorly managed their 401(k) plans, and said the company's oversight of its investment committee was "almost a dereliction of duty."
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April 09, 2024
Colo. Justices Doubt Workers' Comp Stops Insurance Suits
A Colorado Supreme Court justice expressed doubt Tuesday that lawmakers, in crafting Colorado's workers' compensation law, intended to make employees choose between getting workers' comp and suing their employer's auto insurer when injured on the job by an underinsured driver — tackling a question that has stymied the state's federal judiciary.
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April 09, 2024
Carpenters Urge 9th Circ. To Restart Union Retirement Fight
A group of carpenters urged the Ninth Circuit to revive allegations that their union's retirement plan trustees played fast and loose with their savings, saying Tuesday that the trustees should face claims that their risky investment choices caused two retirement plans to plummet in value when the pandemic hit.
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April 09, 2024
4th Circ. Unravels MetLife's Win In Benefits Denial Suit
The Fourth Circuit on Tuesday reinstated a policyholder's lawsuit accusing Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. of wrongly cutting off his long-term disability benefits payments, saying a new precedent requires a bench trial in the dispute.
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April 09, 2024
$350M Google Privacy Settlement Receives Initial Approval
A California federal judge on Tuesday gave the first green light to a $350 million settlement between Google's parent company, Alphabet, and investors over claims the company deceived them about a March 2018 software glitch that allegedly gave third-party app developers the ability to access the private profile data of 500,000 users of the Google Plus social media site.
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April 09, 2024
Judges Question Georgetown Staff's Standing In ERISA Row
D.C. Circuit judges questioned the standing of Georgetown University employees suing over alleged mismanagement of their retirement accounts, with one judge repeatedly telling the plaintiffs' attorney Tuesday that he should re-read a foundational case on the issue.
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April 09, 2024
Ex-Frontier Communications CEO Gets $21.8M Placeholder
Frontier Communications must pay a $21.8 million litigation placeholder to ensure money is available to pay any future judgment in favor of its former CEO Leonard Tow in a feud over company-funded life insurance payments, a Connecticut Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday.
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April 09, 2024
Former Blockchain Stock Exchange CEO Sues For $1.4M Pay
The former CEO of a defunct blockchain securities exchange claims she was denied her final year's salary, bonus and other compensation valued at nearly $1.4 million, according to a complaint filed in Massachusetts state court.
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April 09, 2024
Ex-Legal Tech Exec Says Co. Sued Just To Preempt Her Suit
A former business executive at a Texas law firm and legal technology company called on a Texas federal court Monday to toss her former employer's lawsuit against her, claiming the company and its founders attempted to preempt her New York lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and unlawful termination.
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April 09, 2024
PBGC Gets $127M Overpayment Back From Teamsters Fund
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. has recovered nearly $127 million mistakenly allotted to dead Teamsters pensioners in a bailout of multiemployer retirement plans approved during the pandemic, the federal government said.
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April 09, 2024
7th Circ. Allows Casino Workers To Appeal Class Cert. Denial
The Seventh Circuit granted Casino Queen workers' request to immediately challenge a trial court's refusal to certify a class in their suit alleging that company executives charged their employee stock ownership plan $170 million for shares that ended up being worthless.
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April 08, 2024
Convicted CEO Wants Utility To Fund Defense Through Appeal
The former CEO of the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative urged a federal judge on Monday to order the organization to cover his legal expenses while he appeals his conviction for stealing public funds and prepares for a trial in yet another criminal case.
Expert Analysis
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Roadblocks For Cannabis Employers Setting Up 401(k) Plans
Though the Internal Revenue Code and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act generally allow cannabis businesses to establish 401(k) plans for their employees, companies must still pick their way through uncertainties around tax deductions and recruiting reliable vendors, say attorneys at Shipman & Goodwin.
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Some Client Speculations On AI And The Law Firm Biz Model
Generative artificial intelligence technologies will put pressure on the business of law as it is structured currently, but clients may end up with more price certainty for legal services, and lawyers may spend more time being lawyers, says Jonathan Cole at Melody Capital.
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Revenue Sharing Argument Might Save Barrick In 401(k) Case
During recent oral arguments before the Tenth Circuit, Barrick Gold presented revenue sharing as an obvious alternative explanation for the selection of higher-cost share classes in its ex-workers’ 401(k) plan, establishing that dismissal of the case would be consistent with U.S. Supreme Court pleading standard precedent, say Emily Costin and Blake Crohan at Alston & Bird.
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Now More Than Ever, Fiduciaries Must Revisit ERISA Origins
Given increasing political pressures, including legislation on ESG investing, fiduciaries should have a firm grasp on the historical foundations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, especially its allocation and delegation provision — the act's most important fiduciary duty shield, says Jeff Mamorsky, a Cohen & Buckmann partner who helped draft the statute.
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A Lawyer's Guide To Approaching Digital Assets In Discovery
The booming growth of cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens has made digital assets relevant in many legal disputes but also poses several challenges for discovery, so lawyers must garner an understanding of the technology behind these assets, the way they function, and how they're held, says Brett Sager at Ehrenstein Sager.
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Opinion
High Court's Ethics Statement Places Justices Above The Law
The U.S. Supreme Court justices' disappointing statement on the court's ethics principles and practices reveals that not only are they satisfied with a status quo in which they are bound by fewer ethics rules than other federal judges, but also that they've twisted the few rules that do apply to them, says David Janovsky at the Project on Government Oversight.
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Opinion
Time For Law Schools To Rethink Unsung Role Of Adjuncts
As law schools prepare for the fall 2023 semester, administrators should reevaluate the role of the underappreciated, indispensable adjunct, and consider 16 concrete actions to improve the adjuncts' teaching experience, overall happiness and feeling of belonging, say T. Markus Funk at Perkins Coie, Andrew Boutros at Dechert and Eugene Volokh at UCLA.
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4th Circ. Ruling Reveals 2 Layoff Pitfalls To Avoid
The Fourth Circuit's recent decision in Messer v. Bristol Compressors serves as a reminder that employers have a continuing obligation to keep employees informed about mass layoffs, and that employees do not need to show prejudice to succeed on Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act claims, say Kevin White and Steven DiBeneditto at Hunton.
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Opinion
Duty To Oversee ESG Risks Would Erode Biz Judgment Rule
Imposing a duty to oversee ESG business risks on directors and officers is the exact kind of second-guessing that the business judgment rule is supposed to protect against, and it could expose corporate leaders to ruinous liability and disincentivize serving on public company boards, say Stephen Leitzell and Richard Horvath at Dechert.
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Tips For In-House Legal Leaders In A Challenging Economy
Amid today's economic and geopolitical uncertainty, in-house legal teams are running lean and facing increased scrutiny and unique issues, but can step up and find innovative ways to manage outcomes and capitalize on good business opportunities, says Tim Parilla at LinkSquares.
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How Cities Can Tackle Post-Pandemic Budgeting Dilemmas
Due to increasing office vacancies around the country, cities may consider politically unpopular actions to avoid bankruptcy, but they could also look to the capital markets to ride out the current real estate crisis and achieve debt service savings to help balance their budgets, say attorneys at Cadwalader.
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What Associates Need To Know Before Switching Law Firms
Excerpt from Practical Guidance
The days of staying at the same firm for the duration of one's career are mostly a thing of the past as lateral moves by lawyers are commonplace, but there are several obstacles that associates should consider before making a move, say attorneys at HWG.
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A Case For Sharing Mediation Statements With Counterparties
In light of a potential growing mediation trend of only submitting statements to the mediator, litigants should think critically about the pros and cons of exchanging statements with opposing parties as it could boost the chances of reaching a settlement, says Arthur Eidelhoch at Eidelhoch Mediation.
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Challenging Standing In Antitrust Class Actions: Injury-In-Fact
As demonstrated in recent cases, the classic injury-in-fact requirement for Article III standing claimed in most antitrust suits is economic harm — and while concrete harm satisfies the requirement, litigants may still be able to challenge whether economic injury has occurred, say Michael Hamburger and Holly Tao at White & Case.
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Calif. Independent Contractor Lessons From Grubhub Suit
California courts have been creating little in the way of clarity when it comes to the employment status of gig workers — and a recent federal court decision in Lawson v. Grubhub illustrates how status may change with the winds of litigation, offering four takeaways for businesses that rely on delivery drivers, say Esra Hudson and Marah Bragdon at Manatt.