PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Can Employers Impose a Health Insurance Surcharge on Plan Participants Not Vaccinated for COVID-19?
Fiduciaries must treat plan management as an active compliance obligation to avoid legal exposure, says a Hall Benefits Law practitioner. On April 17, 2025, the US Supreme Court issued a unanimous per curiam opinion in...more
INSURANCE UPDATE - The Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs, that abortions are not a federal constitutional right, has caused employers to ask how this new ruling affects benefits compliance as well as potential liability for...more
Last week, the Supreme Court issued its anticipated ruling in the ERISA fiduciary-breach class action Hughes v. Northwestern. In its unanimous decision, the Court vacated the Seventh Circuit’s dismissal of the case and sent...more
In a recent 5–4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court shut the door on defined-benefit plan participants’ standing to sue under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA)....more
The U.S. Supreme Court (in Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A., available here) recently held that participants in a defined benefit pension plan who have been paid all their monthly pension benefits to date lack standing to sue for...more
In a recent 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court, in Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A., 590 U.S. __ (2020), held that participants in defined benefit pension plans lack standing to sue plan fiduciaries for allegedly imprudent plan...more
In Thole v. U.S. Bank, a 5-4 Supreme Court decision issued on June 1, the Court held that retired participants in a defined benefit pension plan lack constitutional standing to sue the plan fiduciaries for alleged breach of...more
The United States Supreme Court recently reviewed the federal constitutional standing requirements for members of a private defined-benefit pension plan who alleged that the plan trustees violated their fiduciary duties. ...more
On June 1, 2020, the United States Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Kavanaugh and joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito and Gorsuch, held that plaintiffs—participants of a defined-benefit pension...more
In Thole v. U.S. Bank, N.A., the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit's judgment that defined benefit plan participants lack standing to pursue claims of fiduciary...more
In Thole v. U.S. Bank, the Supreme Court held that defined benefit plan participants who are receiving their full pension benefit lack constitutional standing to bring a lawsuit alleging that the plan fiduciaries breached...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Supreme Court dismissed, prior to any discovery, claims of ERISA fiduciary breach because the plan participant-plaintiffs failed to show that the alleged breaches caused them concrete injury. ...more
In a 5-4 decision in Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A., the US Supreme Court has ruled that defined benefit plan participants lack Article III standing to sue for fiduciary breaches that do not harm the individual participants. As the...more
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision, Thole v U.S. Bank, on June 1, 2020, has limited the right of defined benefit plan participants to sue for fiduciary violations to situations in which the defined benefit plan is unable to...more
The Supreme Court of the United States has held many times that the federal courts do not have jurisdiction over a lawsuit unless the plaintiff has standing to sue under the federal Constitution. To have standing, the Court...more
On June 1, 2020, the Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision holding that participants in a defined benefit pension plan who have been paid all of the monthly pension benefits to which they are entitled lack standing under...more
This week’s ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court is potentially positive news and has promising favorable future implications for fiduciaries of ERISA-regulated employee pension plans who might be faced with allegations of...more
The plaintiffs’ expectations surely suffered a blow after reading the Supreme Court’s initial observation in their case: “If [the plaintiffs] were to lose this lawsuit, they would still receive the exact same monthly benefits...more
In a 5-4 decision in Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A., the Supreme Court found that participants in a defined benefit pension plan lacked Article III standing to sue under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA)...more
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has held that participants of defined benefit pension plans generally cannot sue fiduciaries over the management over the plan’s investments. Although ERISA provides statutory causes of...more
Earlier today, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a decision by the Eighth Circuit holding that ERISA plan participants lack Article III standing to sue for breach of fiduciary duty to recover investment losses in a defined...more
On June 1, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A., holding that participants in a defined-benefit pension plan who have so far been paid all of their pension benefits lack Article III standing to sue for...more
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court denied review of a case in which Putnam Investments is alleged by plan participants to have breached its fiduciary duty under ERISA by automatically including higher-cost, actively managed...more