In what may be one of the shortest decisions this term, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous six-page opinion on January 24, 2022 in Hughes v. Northwestern University. Vacating the Seventh Circuit’s decision, the Court further defined an ERISA plan fiduciary’s duty of prudence with respect to its control and management of retirement plan […]
The U.S. Supreme Court is mulling over whether retirement plan participants must demonstrate individual or imminent risk of financial loss before seeking a breach of fiduciary duty action under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). On January 13, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the matter of Thole v. […]
Background As noted in our previous December 2018 blog post, “Texas Judge Declares the Affordable Care Act Unconstitutional – What’s Next?,” and our October 2019 newsletter, “2019 End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” List (Part 1) Health & Welfare,” on December 14, 2018, Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern […]
A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit recently decided that Charles Schwab Corp. can require a proposed class action to arbitrate its claim that Schwab breached its fiduciary duties by including Schwab-affiliated investment funds in the Plan, despite the funds’ poor performance, to generate fees for Schwab and its affiliates. In doing so, the Ninth […]
As explained in our April 21, 2015 and May 9, 2015 blog posts, wellness programs that are part of a group health plan are subject to the HIPAA nondiscrimination rules, and other state and federal laws including, but not limited to the ADA, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and GINA. Navigating the regulatory […]
In 2013, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Windsor, struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) which defined marriage, for Federal purposes, as between one man and one woman. The Windsor ruling resulted in numerous Federal benefits for same-sex couples who were legally married in a jurisdiction that performed same-sex […]
In an earlier blog post this year, I discussed the King v. Burwell case and the possible ramifications if the United States Supreme Court did not uphold the Internal Revenue Service position that residents in states with either a state or federal Health Care Exchange are entitled to receive subsidies from the federal government to […]
In Tibble v. Edison International, Justice Breyer held, for a unanimous Supreme Court, that “a fiduciary normally has a continuing duty of some kind to monitor investments and remove imprudent ones.” In so ruling, the Court reversed a decision from the Ninth Circuit, which held, in essence, that plan fiduciaries could not be held responsible […]
The Supreme Court recently decided a case that eliminates the “presumption of prudence” for plan fiduciaries relating to their investment in employer stock in retirement plans. In Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer, the Supreme Court determined that fiduciaries of an employee stock ownership plan (“ESOP”) are not entitled to a presumption of prudence. Rather, the […]
The Supreme Court recently ruled in U.S. v. Quality Stores that severance paid to employees is considered wages for FICA purposes. Before the Court’s decision, there was little doubt that employer-provided severance was wages for income tax purposes, but lower court cases were a mixed bag about whether severance was wages for FICA tax purposes. […]
