Pension Benefits

Wrongful Denial of Benefits Due

Wrongful denial of benefits claims cover a broad range of problems ranging from clerical errors to misreading of plan documents to outright refusal to pay a benefit you know is due. Under most circumstances, your employer or its designee can be held liable for the money you should have received plus your attorney's fees, interest, and costs. 

Breaches of Fiduciary Duty

Every employee benefits plan has a plan administrator, acting as a fiduciary over the plan and its participants.  As a fiduciary, the plan administrator must perform his duties under the plan, "solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries … with the care, skill, prudence, and diligence under the circumstances then prevailing that a prudent man acting in a like capacity and familiar with such matters would use in the conduct of an enterprise of a like character and with like aims.”  Breaches of fiduciary duty can include failure to properly notice plan participants of changes in benefits; misrepresentations to plan participants about benefits; failure to provide plan documents to plan participants; failure to properly fund a plan; failure to manage plan funds; and more.

Benefit Related Discrimination

Your company cannot modify your employment in a manner which would interfere with your obtaining a benefit owed to you. Typically, this type of case arises where your company wrongfully terminates your employment to keep you from obtaining a benefit incentive. However, interference with benefits may include where your company wrongfully transfers you from a department slated to receive an incentive to prevent you from receiving the incentive.

Fraud, Theft, and Mismanagement of Funds

Your company hires an outside investment firm to act as trustee of the assets of the 401(k) plan in which you and your co-workers invest part of your weekly salary. The company neglects to monitor how the trustee is investing the money to be sure it is invested legally and prudently. As a consequence the plan makes significantly less money than it should or -- worse yet, the trustee steals the money in the plan!

Companies that hire other companies to manage their pension assets owe a duty to employees to make sure the money is safe and well invested. While the trustee is responsible for his conduct, the trustee is not the only one responsible. Therefore, if the trustee is broke or uninsured, the company which hired him can be held responsible for his bad management or theft.

Representative Cases

We file administrative claims and lawsuits against pension plan administrators for our clients.  We have successfully resolved a number of benefit claims before litigation.  Administrative claims, however, are not public record and we cannot disclose them here.   The following is a list of our representative victories in pension plan cases:

·        Tedesco v. Bank of America, a 5,000 member class action alleging ERISA disclosure and fiduciary violations concerning a pension plan in the District of Connecticut.  Settled for $21 million.

·        Bulgaro v. Ivy Asset Management, plaintiffs - trustees of the New York State Teamsters Conference Pension and Retirement Fund - sue the manager of the plan’s assets Ivy Asset Management for losses associated with Ivy’s breaches of fiduciary duty.  The parties settled.

·        Amara v. CIGNA, a 27,000 member class action alleging ERISA disclosure and accrual violations. Judgment for the class worth approximately $80 million affirmed by the Second Circuit. Argued and submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court on November 30, 2010.

·        Richards v. FleetBoston, a 26,000 member class action alleging ERISA pension disclosure violations in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.  Settled for $85 million. 

·        Wasley Products, et al. v. Bulakites, et al., class members sue 401(k) plan trustees and third party agents for plan mismanagement and theft.  Settled.

·        Parry v. SBC, plaintiffs in this case alleged the defendants were shortchanging their pensions by misinterpreting plan documents. It resulted in a summary judgment worth over $3 million in benefits in favor of Cingular workers.

·        Mathews v. Chevron Corp., reversed a strong trend in the Ninth Circuit of narrow views of equitable remedies in ERISA cases.

·        Briere v. Emergi-Lite, recovered millions in stolen 401(k) benefits for laid off employees. Cover story, “Broken Dreams,” Money magazine.  

Generally, lawsuits take from two to five years to complete. While usually a settlement can be reached, sometimes trials are required. While we cannot assure positive results, we have a proven track record of success. Further, our lawyers and staff will be with you at every step to help you through the process, answer questions and address concerns.

Nothing in this website is a promise or guarantee about the outcome of any case. We make no promises or guarantees. Cases are decided on their own facts and we cannot imply that our previous success will result in us winning your case.