BENEFITS DIGEST

While multiple states have passed laws that regulate and reform policies of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), these laws have faced a recent deluge of legal challenges in federal court by industry groups and some plan sponsors.

Defense and aerospace company ATI won dismissal of a proposed class action alleging it put retirees' benefits at risk by transferring approximately $1.5 billion of pension obligations to a private equity-backed insurance company, with a Pennsylvania federal court ruling Monday that the ex-workers hadn't sufficiently pleaded their claims.

The Labor Department filed an amicus brief with a federal appellate court addressing the standards for offloading defined benefit plan liabilities through pension risk transfers. The filing gives sponsors a first official read on how DOL views the safest available annuity analysis in the current PRT litigation wave.

Former employees at American Express (Amex) have filed suit alleging that the credit card company maintained underperforming funds in its 401(k) plan, including target-date funds (TDFs).

That changed in late 2025, when four putative class actions were filed against large employers and their benefits consultants. The cases seek to apply now all-too-familiar retirement plan excessive fee theories to voluntary insurance products.

A federal district court judge has denied a motion to dismiss a proposed class action suit against The Cigna Group over mishandling of its 401(k) plan, which holds about $13 billion in assets for about 93,000 participants.

even if you aren’t responsible for a billion-dollar plan.

asked the nation’s highest court to affirm a decision in favor of plan fiduciaries.

A recent decision from the US District Court for the Southern District of New York provides helpful guidance for Employee Benefits Liability ("EBL") insurers confronting attempts to transform healthcare reimbursement disputes into covered benefits-administration claims.

The ERISA Industry Committee filed an amicus brief asking the Second Circuit to affirm dismissal of a challenge to PepsiCo's tobacco-surcharge wellness program, arguing that the reasonable alternative standard applies to employees who use tobacco rather than guaranteeing every employee an annual chance to avoid the surcharge. The appeal is a key test in the wave of tobacco-surcharge class actions.

NCR Corp. has settled a class action lawsuit for almost $48 million. The five former executives and their spouses who filed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) suit claimed that the software company failed to provide them with lifetime annuity payments, contrary to its promises.

ARA analysis of the JPMorgan prescription-drug fiduciary litigation, where a health plan excessive-cost suit survived dismissal in part on arguments drawn from a recent Supreme Court decision. The piece examines why a documented process may not end the inquiry when plaintiffs plead prohibited-transaction claims.

F.4th —-, 2026 WL 2084784 (7th Cir. July 20, 2026), a suit for ERISA benefits, the Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the University of Chicago, its two Section 403(b) retirement plans, and TIAA, the plans’ recordkeeper, holding that a power of attorney lacking express authority to waive spousal annuity rights could not effect the change.

Over the past several years I’ve worked as an investment expert with ERISA plaintiff law firms helping investigate and file more than 40 fixed annuity excessive fee and prohibited transaction lawsuits. Just Scratching the Surface.

Pension fund sues five janitorial service contractors for failing to pay required pension contributions and provide reporting information; court grants motion to dismiss but allows amended complaint.

For more than a decade, the Department of Labor’s participant fee disclosure regulation under ERISA Section 404(a)(5) has been promoted as the cornerstone of transparency in defined contribution plans.

The federal court rejected most of the defendant’s bid to end the suit, but abstained from intervening in related divorce proceedings.

The use of forfeitures to offset contributions continues to draw industry support.

The deal, if approved by a federal district court in California, would require updates to future pension calculations.

Employee shareholder challenges ESOP sale as undervalued, alleging trustees breached fiduciary duties; court affirms dismissal of all claims.

In Scorzo v. Unum Life Insurance Company of America, No. 23-cv-3836 (N.D. Ill. July 17, 2026), the court upheld Unum’s denial of long-term disability benefits under the any-occupation standard on de novo review.

F.4th —-, 2026 WL 2071139 (7th Cir. July 17, 2026), the Seventh Circuit affirmed a defense judgment entered after a three-week bench trial in a suit brought by a participant in the employee stock ownership plan that wholly owned Segerdahl Corporation.

Following a bench trial on the administrative record, a California federal court found in favor of a long-term disability claimant whose ERISA benefits Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company had paid for two decades before cutting them off.

Most analyses of the 401(k) industry rank providers according to assets under management, number of plans, or participants. While useful, these rankings fail to explain why some providers consistently appear in ERISA excessive-fee litigation while others rarely do.

In Hudson Hospital OPCO, LLC v. Cigna Health & Life Insurance Co., No. 24-2830, 2026 WL 2057076 (3d Cir. July 16, 2026), three New Jersey hospitals appealed the dismissal of claims they brought against Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company and Connecticut General Life Insurance Company under ERISA.

From 2008 to 2012, while serving as a Kentucky Retirement Systems trustee, I was not allowed to know the names of the underlying hedge funds inside three hedge fund-of-funds managers.

Judge Lewis J. Liman of the Southern District of New York denied an ERISA long-term disability claimant’s motion to compel discovery into matters outside the administrative record.

If your retirement plan holds American Century One Choice target-date funds, you have a target on your back. More than a dozen ERISA class actions have been filed against plans holding this single fund suite since early 2026, and the pace is accelerating

In Advanced Gynecology & Laparoscopy of North Jersey P.C. v. Cigna Health & Life Insurance Co., No. 24-2212, 2026 WL 2030368 (3d Cir. July 13, 2026), nearly two dozen New Jersey healthcare practices, providing out-of-network services to Cigna subscribers who had assigned their plan benefits, alleged that Cigna

In Guenther v. BP Retirement Accumulation Plan, No. 24-20551, 2026 WL 2031828 (5th Cir. July 14, 2026) (per curiam), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated a judgment entered in favor of a class of current and former BP employees on their ERISA fiduciary-breach claims and remanded for the

It's the third recent legal victory in No Surprises lawsuits for billings intermediary HaloMD, which has also had suits dismissed in California and Texas.

The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, per U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss a pro se ERISA claimant’s short-term disability suit and to compel arbitration of his retaliation claim.

Union fund trustees and three affiliated local unions sued Barnhart Crane & Rigging Co. under ERISA and the Labor Management Relations Act.

On June 29, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware affirmed the disallowance of federal WARN Act claims asserted against Yellow Corporation by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and other unions.

In Supreme Linen Services, Inc. v. U.S., 2026 WL 1220078 (S.D. Fla. 2026), an employer sued the federal government after the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assessed an employer shared responsibility penalty against the company.

In Wang v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., No. 25-11527, 2026 WL 1960673 (11th Cir. July 7, 2026), the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the entry of judgment for MetLife on a pro se participant’s ERISA claim for long-term disability benefits under a General Electric plan.

Cir. July 7, 2026) This consolidated appeal arose from a dispute between the Trustees of the IAM National Pension Fund and a family of affiliated truck dealerships operating as M&K Truck Centers.

Iron workers' unions sued a crane company for failing to make required contributions to union trust funds for work performed by its employees, but the court affirmed summary judgment against the unions because they lacked admissible evidence of damages after an expert witness was excluded.

The Third Circuit’s decision in Johnson v. Quest Diagnostics, Inc. was a recent bright spot for ERISA litigation in a sea of mostly depressing news. The plaintiffs in the Quest case brought suit alleging that the retention of two underperforming actively managed funds in Quest’s 401(k) plan was a fiduciary breach.

Lawson granted judgment to a former automotive production worker whose ERISA-governed long-term disability benefits MetLife had terminated, holding that MetLife improperly denied the claim by applying the wrong plan definition of disability.

This month’s Friday Five discusses decisions (1) allowing a bad faith claim to proceed against a long-term disability insurer based on its handling of a claim for benefits, (2) enforcing a forum-selection clause in an ERISA plan against the plan’s insurers that were not parties to the plan, and more.

The court denied Defendant Metropolitan Life Insurance Company’s motion.

The organization’s amicus brief backed Intel and warned that allowing lawsuits based on hindsight would fuel costly litigation and harm 401(k) participants.

The groups all filed amicus briefs arguing for prudent ERISA processes over investment returns

Court ruled that General Obligations Law § 5-335 bars an insurer's subrogation lien for short-term disability benefits paid to an injured employee, invalidating the insurer's lien.

Trade associations and unions challenged New York's fossil-fuel appliance bans as preempted by federal energy conservation law; the Second Circuit affirmed, finding EPCA's preemption clause does not extend to the state laws.

The organization’s amicus brief backed Intel and warned that allowing lawsuits based on hindsight would fuel costly litigation and harm 401(k) participants.

Amicus briefs by the Department of Labor and the employer group warned the Supreme Court to not allow lawsuits under ERISA based solely on an investment fund’s underperformance.

The groups all filed amicus briefs arguing for prudent ERISA processes over investment returns

In its January 2026 statement of enforcement policy, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) indicated that cybersecurity and data protection were its highest priority.

the case in which the Supreme Court held in May that a plan’s actuary may calculate an employer’s withdrawal liability using actuarial assumptions adopted after the measurement date.

The United States Supreme Court recently held in M&K Employee Solutions, LLC et al. v. Trustees of the IAM National Pension Fund that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”)

The Third Circuit affirmed summary judgment for a 401(k) plan sponsor in In re Quest Diagnostics ERISA Litigation, holding that ERISA's duty of prudence is a process-based inquiry. A sound fiduciary process, not investment results, defeats a breach claim, and permissive investment-policy-statement language preserved the committee's discretion to retain underperforming funds.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” is a famous quote with unclear origins dating back over 200 years. It is a saying that plaintiff firms appear to have used as inspiration for their

Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ·

The Third Circuit affirmed summary judgment for a 401(k) plan sponsor in In re Quest Diagnostics ERISA Litigation, holding that ERISA's duty of prudence is a process-based inquiry. A sound fiduciary process, not investment results, defeats a breach claim, and permissive investment-policy-statement language preserved the committee's discretion to retain underperforming funds.

In the past few years, several cases have been filed against ESOP fiduciaries who allegedly invested employer contributions in an ESOP’s other investment account (“OIA”) too conservatively. These

Salek-Raham said, “I think after these cases came out, a lot of employers took a good look at their forfeiture language and their plan documents,” noting that courts are increasingly focused on plan

The court’s analysis involved determining whether the Chicago Transit Authority’s request for a third opinion on his leave certification comported with the law.

Salek-Raham observed that the decision “does create a disincentive to bringing class actions in the Fourth Circuit involving defined-contribution plans.” His comments highlighted the growing divide

Employers are now beginning to receive settlement proceeds from the $2.67 billion class action settlement reached by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) and the class plaintiffs. This

Bermuda has introduced a new right for employees to take 'parental leave' when they adopt or become the legal guardian of a young child who lives in their household. The new right broadly aligns with