Blog

Because last day of plan's 180 day appeal period ran on a Sunday, a claimant had until the following day to file his appeal. Legras v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 8824 (9th Cir. May 28, 2015). ERISA plans may require employees to execute releases of claims to qualify for and ultimately...

A fiduciary has a continuing duty of prudence to monitor and remove imprudent investments from the plan, not only the duty to select them prudently from the outset. Tibble v. Edison Int'l, 135 S. Ct. 1823 (May 18, 2015). A bankruptcy debtor who converts from Chapter 13 bankruptcy to Chapter 7 is entitled to return...

A district court properly granted summary judgment against former plan participants, because their alleged injury could not be traced to any alleged misconduct by the plan or the sponsoring employer and it could not be redressed without excessive speculation. Any breaches of fiduciary duty did not cause material harm to the plan participants that entitled...

A district court properly granted an employer summary judgment against a discrimination claim by a former employee who it laid off and did not rehire, because he was not qualified for the position he sought, the employer was in financial trouble, his lead position was not necessary when the program he was assigned to only...

Before suing an employer, the EEOC must inform the employer about the specific discrimination allegations; describe what the employer has done and which employees (or class of employees) have suffered and try to engage the employer in a discussion in order to give the employer a chance to remedy the allegedly discriminatory practice.  Mach Mining...

A District Court erroneously granted summary judgment against an employee's long term disability benefit claim by reviewing an administrator's denial of claim under abuse of discretion rather than a de novo standard, because although the summary plan description for the plan gave the plan administrator discretionary authority to determine eligibility for benefits, the insurance certificate...

A District Court erroneously granted summary judgment against an employee's disability discrimination claim under California law, because the employee created an issue of fact about whether his disability caused his termination by submitting his own declaration stating that his supervisor told him "if you're going to stick with being sick, it's not helping your situation. ...

A pregnant employee denied light duty could make a disparate treatment claim against an employer who provided light duty to employees who were work injured, disabled or lost their Department of Transportation certificates, unless the employer could offer a legitimate reason for denying her light duty that is not based simply on greater expense or...