After several consecutive busy months, the federal courts finally took a breather last week and (presumably) turned their attention to non-ERISA matters. As a result, we regret to inform you that we have no case of the week to discuss.

Nonetheless, there were several interesting nuggets in the orders that were issued. One is that plaintiff-side attorneys in Vermont (your editor’s home state) can apparently only get $350 per hour for multi-year complex ERISA litigation (Browe v. CTC Corp.), while Utah attorneys can get nearly double that ($650/hour, Gail W.-S. v. United). Step up your game, Vermont!

Second, if you are a plan administrator and receive a request for plan documents from an attorney, you should not promise to produce them, fail to do that, and then contend later that it’s no big deal because the attorney already had those documents from another case. The judge will not be pleased (Haldeman v. Mass General).

Third, although the National Football League’s disability benefit plan has come under repeated fire over the years, one court believes it is a stretch to sue their medical advisory physicians for breach of fiduciary duty (Glaud v. NFL).

Finally, when you get divorced, don’t wait nine years to submit a qualified domestic relations order to your spouse’s benefit plan, and don’t wait four years after your benefits end to start asking why that happened (Gray v. DTE Energy).

There’s more below, and the Civil Justice Reform Act reporting period is coming up quickly at the end of the month, so enjoy this respite while you can!

Below is a summary of this past week’s notable ERISA decisions by subject matter and jurisdiction.

Attorneys’ Fees

Second Circuit

Browe v. CTC Corp., No. 2:15-cv-00267-cr, 2026 WL 2665589 (D. Vt. Sept. 10, 2026) (Judge Christina Reiss). In this decade-old action, Donna Browe, Tyler Burgess, Bonnie Jamieson, Philip Jordan, Lucille Launderville, and the Estate of Beverly Burgess sued CTC Corporation and its owner, Bruce Laumeister, alleging that defendants failed to adequately fund two deferred compensation plans, wrongfully denied plaintiffs benefits, and breached fiduciary and reporting duties. Defendants counterclaimed against Launderville for contribution and indemnification based on her role as a breaching co-fiduciary. In 2017-18, the district court held a bench trial and ruled in favor of plaintiffs. The case went up to the Second Circuit, which largely ruled in favor of plaintiffs, but reversed and remanded on several issues. (This decision was Your ERISA Watch’s case of the week in our October 6, 2021 edition.) The district court then issued supplemental findings and remedial orders, which once again went up to the Second Circuit. That court again reversed for more fact-finding, and also ruled that Launderville and Browe were not entitled to relief. Earlier this year, the court finally resolved all remaining merits issues and tackled the parties’ dueling motions for attorney’s fees. The court determined that defendants could recover fees only against Launderville, because the Second Circuit had found she engaged in self-dealing that breached fiduciary duties, but could not recover fees against any of the remaining parties. The court also found that defendants could not obtain fees based on their contribution counterclaim “because it is not a cause of action under ERISA[.]” As for the remaining plaintiffs, the court determined that they were entitled to fees for their successful claims but not for time spent on Launderville’s or Browe’s meritless ones. The court thus ordered the parties to file renewed motions for fees consistent with its ruling. (We covered this decision in our April 29, 2026 edition.) The parties did so, and this new decision (hopefully) finally resolves both sides’ fees claims. On defendants’ motion, which requested $406,234.16, the court rejected their proposed blended hourly rate of $324.97 as unexplained and inflationary. Instead, it used the actual rates each attorney charged, which it found reasonable given the case’s complexity and duration. The court likewise rejected defendants’ “phase-based” method of identifying how many hours were spent on their counterclaim against Launderville, which allocated one-sixth of Phase I hours, one-third of Phase II hours, and all of Phase III hours to litigating against her. The court found these ratios “imprecise,” “unjustified,” “inappropriate,” and “inconsistent with the record.” The court concluded, “Because many of Defendants’ claimed hours for all three phases were spent on matters for which they cannot recover attorney’s fees, the court finds a fifty percent across-the-board reduction to be reasonable.” This left defendants with a $189,478.92 fee award against Launderville. On plaintiffs’ motion for fees, the court rejected defendants’ argument that the court should simply apply a hypothetical 30-percent contingency fee as a ceiling on their award. The court found current hourly rates of $350 for plaintiffs’ partner-level attorneys and $150 for administrative staff reasonable, applying current rather than historic rates to reflect the significant passage of time. The court rejected plaintiffs’ claim that only roughly thirteen percent of their time was spent on Launderville’s and Browe’s claims, finding that figure “inconceivable” given that those two accounts were the largest in the plan and drove the bulk of the litigation’s complexity as well as the issues in both appeals. In the end, the court applied a cumulative 55-percent across-the-board reduction to plaintiffs’ claimed hours. Thirty percent accounted for time spent on Launderville’s and Browe’s non-recoverable claims, an additional ten percent accounted for block-billed administrative entries, and a further fifteen percent accounted for the fact that plaintiffs’ counsel was “unnecessarily uncooperative” and had a “combative litigation style,” which led to a case that was “over-litigated and unnecessarily contentious.” This resulted in a fee award of $295,724.50, plus an uncontested $24,547.89 in costs and expenses, for a total of $320,272.39. Will this case go back to the Second Circuit for a third time? If so, we will let you know!

Tenth Circuit

Gail W.-S. v. United Healthcare Ins. Co., No. 2:19-cv-00810, 2026 WL 2690080 (D. Utah Sept. 14, 2026) (Judge Robert J. Shelby). Gail W.-S. and her son C.L. sued United Healthcare Insurance Company in 2019, asserting claims under ERISA and the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act after United denied coverage for C.L.’s residential mental health treatment. In 2024, on cross-motions for summary judgment, the court reversed United’s denial as arbitrary and capricious, finding United failed to engage with the information plaintiffs submitted in support of their claims and failed to adequately explain its rationale for denying them. The court thus found the Parity Act claim moot, entered judgment for plaintiffs, and remanded the claim to United for reconsideration. The court retained jurisdiction to award attorneys’ fees, costs, and prejudgment interest following United’s redetermination. (Your ERISA Watch covered this decision in our August 14, 2024 edition.) On remand, United approved C.L.’s claim for residential treatment and paid $102,763.41. Plaintiffs then moved for an award of fees, costs, and prejudgment interest at Utah’s 10% statutory rate. United opposed any fee award and, in the alternative, argued for a reduced fee and an interest rate of 5.48%, based on the prime rate. The court applied the Tenth Circuit’s five-factor test governing discretionary ERISA fee awards and found that four of the five favored plaintiffs. First, it held United was culpable; its “denial was arbitrary and capricious because it failed to comply with procedures it was required to follow under ERISA.” Second, United’s “ability to pay ‘is not seriously in question.’” Third, the court found an award would deter United and other insurers from similar conduct, observing that “similar cases involving denied claims for [residential mental health] treatment in Utah constantly come before this court,” and “the insurance industry appears to need a strong push to engage in meaningful dialogue with future claimants[.]” The fourth factor cut against plaintiffs, as they pursued only individual relief. Their success “may afford some remote benefit to other plan participants and beneficiaries, [but] any benefit is speculative and lies in deterrence.” The fifth factor (the relative merits), favored plaintiffs because they achieved “some degree of success on the merits” on their benefit claim, even if their Parity Act claim did not also succeed. Turning to the amount of the award, the court applied the lodestar method. It agreed with plaintiffs that in a case spanning nearly seven years, where counsel’s fees were not paid until the end of litigation, it was appropriate to use counsel’s more recent billing rates rather than the lower rates in effect when the case was filed, in order to reflect the fee’s present value. The court declined, however, to use plaintiffs’ present-day rates of $650 per hour for Brian King and $400 per hour for Samuel Hall, instead adopting the $600 and $300 rates each was billing when their work on the case concluded in 2025. The court also deducted $90 in fees tied to purely clerical entries but otherwise found King’s 76.4 hours and Hall’s 51.9 hours reasonable, yielding a total fee award of $61,720. On prejudgment interest, the court again sided with plaintiffs, adopting Utah’s 10% statutory simple interest rate for breach of contract claims rather than United’s proposed prime rate, reasoning that “[c]ourts commonly look to state statutory prejudgment interest provisions as guidelines for a reasonable rate” in ERISA cases. The court saw “no reason to complicate matters by assessing a ‘rate charged by banks to its most credit-worthy customers[.]’” Using the 10% rate, the court boosted plaintiffs’ $102,763.41 in wrongly withheld benefits by $88,516.32 in prejudgment interest.

Breach of Fiduciary Duty

Third Circuit

Glaud v. NFL Player Disability and Survivor Benefit Plan, No. 25-cv-15373-ESK-EAH, 2026 WL 2664386 (D.N.J. Sept. 10, 2026) (Judge Edward S. Kiel). Ka’Lial Glaud is a former National Football League linebacker who attended Rutgers University on a coin toss (sorry, West Virginia University) and played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Dallas Cowboys from 2013-16. He applied for neurocognitive disability benefits under the ERISA-governed NFL Player Disability and Survivor Benefit Plan in March of 2023. After evaluation by two of the plan’s physicians, the initial claims committee denied his claim. Glaud appealed to the plan’s disability board, which is the plan’s named administrator and fiduciary. During the appeal, the board referred the question of whether Glaud had a neurocognitive impairment to two medical advisory physicians (MAPs), Dr. William Garmoe and Dr. Silvana Riggio. According to Glaud, Garmoe and Riggio issued a report finding his neurocognitive scores “invalid and uninterpretable” and concluding they “could not determine whether he met the criteria for neurocognitive impairment.” They recommended a further evaluation, which found that Glaud indeed had a neurocognitive disorder resulting from a traumatic brain injury. Nevertheless, the board denied Glaud’s appeal, citing the plan’s provision that MAP determinations on referred medical issues are final and binding. Glaud thus brought this action, asserting one count against the plan for benefits, and separate counts against Garmoe and Riggio personally for breach of fiduciary duty, alleging their conduct harmed the plan. Defendants moved to dismiss the fiduciary duty claims, arguing among other things that “MAPs are not fiduciaries as a matter of law because they exercise only medical discretion, and the Board retains exclusive discretion over benefit entitlement and plan interpretation[.]” The court agreed that fiduciary status was a “threshold issue.” The court noted that “the parties do not dispute what authority the Plan assigns to MAPs. They agree that Garmoe and Riggio’s roles as MAPs are fixed by the Plan.” As a result, the court consulted the plan to “determine from the undisputed Plan provisions whether MAPs have discretionary authority over Plan administration within the meaning of ERISA.” Glaud argued that because the plan granted MAPs “final and binding” authority, Garmoe and Riggio were functional fiduciaries. However, the court found that the plan vested the board, not the MAPs, with full and absolute discretion to interpret the plan and decide benefit eligibility: “[T]he ‘final and binding’ language amounts only to professional medical discretion over a limited aspect of the claims process.” The court found that Garmoe and Riggio “did not determine whether Glaud’s claim or direct payment of Plan assets would be approved… The Board retained ultimate discretion to determine whether the remaining Plan requirements were satisfied and whether Glaud was entitled to benefits.” The court noted that other courts have consistently declined to treat professionals who merely advise plan administrators as fiduciaries, reserving that status for those who “exercise[]…an unusual degree of influence over a [p]lan.” The court was unimpressed that Garmoe and Riggio had co-authored an orientation manual for the plan’s neutral physicians: “It is unclear how authorship of a manual governing neutral physicians establish fiduciary authority in Garmoe and Riggio’s distinct capacities as MAPs. The Plan itself sets the eligibility criteria to receive benefits.” The court likewise rejected Glaud’s allegations that Garmoe and Riggio routinely disregarded evidence of neurocognitive impairment in other cases, ruling that such evidence “concerns how Garmoe and Riggio exercised medical judgment” and “does not expand the authority” conferred on MAPs by the plan. Because its ruling that Garmoe and Riggio were not fiduciaries was dispositive of Glaud’s fiduciary duty claims, the court did not reach defendants’ alternative arguments regarding plan-level loss, the sufficiency of the pleaded breaches, or the futility of amendment. Defendants’ motion was thus granted, and Glaud’s breach of fiduciary duty claims against Garmoe and Riggio were dismissed with prejudice.

Pension Benefit Claims

Sixth Circuit

Gray v. DTE Energy Co. Retirement Plan, No. 2:24-CV-11416-TGB-EAS, 2026 WL 2643898 (E.D. Mich. Sept. 8, 2026) (Judge Terrence G. Berg). Vickie Gray and Randy Gray had been married for more than 25 years when they divorced in January of 2006. Their divorce judgment awarded Vickie 50 percent of Randy’s interest in the DTE Energy Company Retirement Plan, including pre-retirement and post-retirement benefits and surviving spouse benefits, to be effectuated through a qualified domestic relations order (QDRO). Randy married Joy Gray in 2007, and in March of 2011, when he began receiving retirement benefits, he executed a Pension Election Authorization Form electing a 75-percent Joint and Survivor Annuity naming Joy as beneficiary and certifying – incorrectly – that “I am not currently and have never been involved in a divorce that impacted my pension benefits.” Not until October of 2015, more than nine years after the divorce and four years after Randy began receiving benefits, did Vickie and Randy submit a QDRO to state court, which was in turn transmitted to the plan. The plan’s third-party administrator approved the QDRO, but because Randy had already commenced his benefit, the plan’s QDRO procedures limited Vickie’s award to “a Shared Payment benefit payable over the participant’s lifetime… The alternate payee’s benefit will cease upon…the death of the participant[.]” Vickie received her shared payment until Randy died in January of 2018, at which time her payments ceased; meanwhile, Joy began receiving her 75-percent survivor annuity. Fast forward to the end of 2022, when Vickie’s attorney submitted a demand letter seeking resumption of benefit payments. The plan treated the letter as a claim and denied it on two grounds. First, the claim was untimely under the plan’s twelve-month limitations period, and second, even if timely, the plan’s terms barred her from receiving survivor benefits and furthermore, those benefits had already vested with Joy. Vickie’s appeal was denied so she brought this action in 2024, asserting an ERISA § 502 claim against the plan for the survivor benefits, and separate state law claims against Joy and Randy’s estate for fraud, misrepresentation, and a declaratory judgment. Joy and the estate failed to file appearances, but the court declined to enter a default judgment against them pending resolution of the central ERISA claim to avoid inconsistent outcomes. (We covered this order in our April 1, 2026 edition.) The plan and Vickie then filed cross-motions for judgment which were decided in this ruling. The court reviewed the denial for abuse of discretion because the parties agreed that “the Plan vests the administrator with discretionary authority to determine eligibility for benefits or otherwise construe the terms of the plan.” Under this standard, the court first held that the plan reasonably denied Vickie’s claim as untimely. The court held that the cessation of benefit payments constitutes a “clear and unequivocal repudiation” sufficient to start the limitations clock. Vickie contended that she did not know why her benefits stopped, but this was “a non-starter because the issue is whether she knew they had stopped, not whether she knew the reason why, and she fails to explain why she waited four years to assert a claim for those benefits.” Thus, because Vickie knew her payments had stopped in 2018 but waited until 2022 to assert a claim, her claim was untimely under the plan’s twelve-month deadline. The court further agreed with the plan that even if Vickie’s claim had been timely, she was ineligible for survivor benefits. As quoted above, under the plan an alternate payee cannot receive survivor benefits through a QDRO if the participant’s benefits have already begun. Because Randy had already been receiving benefits for more than four years when the QDRO was submitted, and because survivor benefits vest in the participant’s then-current spouse at retirement absent an earlier QDRO, Joy’s survivor benefit had already vested and could not be transferred to Vickie. Vickie contended that “she believed that Randy Gray’s and Joy Gray’s fraudulent statements in the Pension Election Authorization Form would be corrected by the Plan,” citing the form’s note that “reserved the right to correct errors.” However, the court agreed with the plan that this provision only addressed errors that “‘conflict[] with the benefits defined by [the Plan]’ at the time the Form is executed.” Because no QDRO had been received or approved when Randy executed his election, there was no conflict to correct. The fault lay with Joy and not the plan: “it was Plaintiff’s failure to submit a QDRO until well after Randy Gray began receiving benefits that led to the benefits denial determination.” The court also considered, and rejected on the merits, an ERISA § 503 notice claim Vickie raised for the first time in her cross-motion rather than in her complaint, finding that the plan’s detailed denial letters set out the specific reasons for denial in a manner satisfying § 503’s adequate-notice requirement. As a result, the court granted the plan’s motion for judgment and denied Vickie’s cross-motion. The court also dismissed with prejudice Vickie’s remaining claims against Joy and Randy’s estate, as those claims were also based on her claim to the benefits at issue, which the court had just rejected.

Eighth Circuit

Wilkes v. Cargill, Inc., No. 25-cv-3227 (ECT/SGE), 2026 WL 2676754 (D. Minn. Sept. 11, 2026) (Judge Eric C. Tostrud). Steven Wilkes worked at a Cargill plant in Mississippi from 1977 to 1986. The parties agreed that Wilkes was vested in the Cargill, Inc. & Associated Companies Pension Plan for Production Employees, but “they dispute whether the Plan actually paid the benefit Wilkes was owed.” Wilkes contended he had never received a dime from the Plan, while the Plan contended that it paid Wilkes his benefit as a lump sum sometime after a 1989 amendment to the Plan which required cash-outs where “the present value of such benefit does not exceed $3,500.00[.]” Based on internal valuations showing Wilkes’ present-value benefit was $1,821.58 in 1988 and $2,099.21 in 1989, the Plan concluded that a mandatory cash-out was triggered around that time. The Plan also relied on a screenshot of pre-2011 participant records showing Wilkes with a total current and deferred benefit of $0, which supported its cash-out finding, and confirmed with Willis Towers Watson, which had administered Plan payments since 2011, that it had no record of Wilkes at all. The Plan, however, did not provide “tax or bank records that could definitively show the lump-sum benefit payment to Wilkes.” Wilkes appealed, disputing the screenshot’s accuracy and authenticity. However, he likewise did not offer any bank records, tax records, or account statements to support his position. The Plan upheld its denial, and Wilkes filed this action against Cargill and the Plan under 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B) seeking recovery of his benefit or, alternatively, remand to the Plan administrator. The case proceeded to cross-motions for summary judgment. Because the Plan contained a grant of discretionary authority, the court reviewed the Plan’s denial for abuse of discretion. The Plan passed this test: “Given Wilkes’s vesting status in 1986, the Plan’s 1989 amendment, the estimated valuations of Wilkes’s benefit in 1986, 1988, and 1989, Wilkes’s participant record, and confirmation from Willis Towers Watson, the Plan’s denial of pension benefits to Wilkes was supported by substantial evidence in the administrative record.” The court acknowledged Wilkes’s argument that the Plan did not support its argument with “additional records, such as tax or bank records, that could validate Wilkes’s participant record showing $0.” However, “Wilkes cites no authority to support his argument that failure to obtain or maintain additional or more detailed records constitutes an abuse of discretion. And Wilkes’s argument ignores the evidence that was in the administrative record to corroborate his participant record.” Furthermore, “The fact that Wilkes provided no evidence in support of his claim also undermines his argument that the Plan abused its discretion by failing to develop the administrative record.” The court noted that “nearly 40 years have passed since Wilkes’s employment ended,” and thus it was “easy to appreciate why the evidence available to both Parties in this case might be limited.” The court minimized Wilkes’ professed uncertainty about the software or method used to generate the participant record screenshot, finding that it was reasonable for the Plan “to rely on its knowledge of how to interpret its own records,” and that the Plan “provided a rational explanation for its interpretation[.]” As a result, the court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment, denied Wilkes’ motion, and dismissed his complaint with prejudice.

Provider Claims

Second Circuit

Karkare v. Estée Lauder Companies, Inc., No. 22-CV-3835-SJB-ST, 2026 WL 2655508 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 9, 2026) (Judge Sanket J. Bulsara). Nakul Karkare, M.D., a surgeon practicing with AA Medical, P.C., sued Estée Lauder Companies, Inc. as “Attorney-in-Fact on Behalf of Patient JS.” JS, a beneficiary of an Estée Lauder-sponsored ERISA-governed health plan, was treated for a meniscus tear by another AA Medical surgeon, Dr. Vedant Vaksha. AA Medical billed Estée Lauder’s claims administrator $163,872.01 for the surgery, but the plan paid only $497.62. When Karkare’s appeal of the under-reimbursement was denied, he brought this action seeking the unpaid benefits plus interest. Estée Lauder moved to dismiss for lack of standing in 2023, but the case was stayed pending Karkare’s appeal to the Second Circuit “in a nearly identical case” he brought against another plan on behalf of a different patient. The Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of that case in 2025. (That decision, Karkare v. International Ass’n of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental & Reinforcing Iron Workers Local 580, was the case of the week in our June 18, 2025 edition.) The court thus lifted the stay in this action and ordered a new round of briefing. Estée Lauder filed a renewed motion to dismiss, and Karkare, who is now proceeding pro se because his counsel withdrew, did not oppose the motion. Unsurprisingly, the court granted the motion, ruling that the Second Circuit’s decision dictated the outcome of this action: Karkare lacked Article III standing. The Second Circuit had held that a power of attorney, unlike an assignment of claims, does not transfer legal title to or a proprietary interest in a claim, and therefore cannot confer Article III standing on the attorney-in-fact to sue in his own name, even when the suit is nominally brought on the patient’s behalf. The court found the complaint here “materially indistinguishable” from the one at issue in the Second Circuit case. In both cases Karkare identified himself as the plaintiff throughout, used his own name and AA Medical’s name interchangeably with the patient, referred to the patient only as “the Patient” rather than as a party, and sought relief for himself rather than for the patient. Because the complaint demonstrated that Karkare was suing in his own name and for his own benefit (or AA Medical’s), rather than for an injury personally suffered by Patient JS, the court concluded he lacked standing and that it therefore lacked subject matter jurisdiction over his claims. (As a result, the court chose not to address Estée Lauder’s alternative arguments about the validity of the power of attorney itself.) The court granted Estée Lauder’s motion and dismissed Karkare’s complaint without prejudice.

Statute of Limitations

Third Circuit

Fernandez v. Famiglio, No. 26-cv-0105, 2026 WL 2670660 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 10, 2026) (Judge Chad F. Kenney). Sacha Fernandez, proceeding pro se, sued Peter Famiglio individually and as plan administrator of the Peter Famiglio 401(k) Plan based on events occurring after her employment ended in January of 2020. Fernandez alleged that she first requested information about her plan benefits in July of 2020 but never received it, and separately that Famiglio failed to timely distribute benefits owed to her under the Plan. (However, Fernandez acknowledged that she received the remaining distribution of her 401(k) funds by April of 2024.) As we recounted in our June 3, 2026 edition, the court previously dismissed Fernandez’s first amended complaint without prejudice for failure to state a claim for retaliation under ERISA § 510, and separately dismissed as time-barred her claim for failure to provide plan documents under ERISA § 502(c). Fernandez filed a motion for reconsideration, which was denied by the court in July of this year. Because the court’s dismissal gave her leave to amend, Fernandez filed a second amended complaint, which the court “[c]onstrued liberally” as asserting a claim for benefits and to enforce or clarify her rights under the plan pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B), and a claim for breach of fiduciary duty under 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(3) based on Famiglio’s alleged failure to provide information she needed to understand her plan rights, determine her account’s value, and pursue distribution of her benefits. Famiglio moved to dismiss, once again raising a timeliness defense. The court agreed with Famiglio that the new complaint simply repeated the same factual allegations as before without curing the limitations problem. Because Fernandez had received her remaining 401(k) distribution by April 2024, the court found “there are presently no ‘benefits due to [Plaintiff] under the terms of the plan’ for her to recover.” Thus, the only claim left under § 1132(a)(1)(B) was enforcing or clarifying her rights under the plan. Applying Pennsylvania’s analogous four-year statute of limitations for breach of contract claims, the court held that Fernandez’s claim accrued by August 2020, when she knew Famiglio had failed to furnish the plan information she requested, so the four-year period expired by the end of August 2024, well before she filed this action in 2026. As for § 1132(a)(3), the court applied 29 U.S.C. § 1113’s limitations framework, under which a three-year period governs when a plaintiff has “actual knowledge of the breach.” The court again found Fernandez had actual knowledge of Famiglio’s failure to provide the requested plan information by the end of August 2020, more than a month after her initial request, so the three-year period expired in 2023, more than two years before she filed suit. As a result, the court found that Fernandez’s two claims were both untimely and dismissed them with prejudice, ruling that amendment would be futile.

Statutory Penalties

First Circuit

Haldeman v. Mass General Brigham Inc., No. 25-cv-10331-ADB, 2026 WL 2687259 (D. Mass. Sept. 14, 2026) (Judge Allison D. Burroughs). Siobhan Haldeman, a participant in the Massachusetts General Hospital Long Term Disability Wrap Plan, had her long-term disability claim denied by a claim administrator on August 19, 2024. In preparing her appeal, Haldeman’s counsel requested the documents governing the plan, along with Haldeman’s personnel file, from Mass General Brigham, Inc. (MGB), the plan’s administrator, on September 18, 2024. MGB initially forwarded only a plan summary and promised to track down the rest. However, further written requests on October 22, October 29, December 2, and December 9, 2024, went unanswered. A December 18, 2024 follow-up drew an apology and a promise to “promptly send over” the material, which did not occur. A final request on January 11, 2025 was also unsuccessful, so on February 9, 2025, Haldeman filed this action against MGB and the plan seeking a penalty under 29 U.S.C. § 1132(c)(1) for defendants’ failure to timely produce the requested documents, along with attorney’s fees and costs. MGB did not produce the plan documents until May 6, 2025 – 230 days after Haldeman’s first request. At that time MGB informed counsel that it “had already provided Haldeman’s counsel with the Plan Documents in connection with separate matters in which Haldeman’s counsel represented other Plan claimants.” The case proceeded to cross-motions for summary judgment, with Haldeman seeking $22,000 in penalties. The court first addressed which defendant could be held liable, explaining that a plan administrator is distinct from the plan itself, and that only the administrator may be penalized under § 1132(c)(1). Because the parties agreed MGB, not the plan, administered the plan, the court granted summary judgment to the plan on that basis and treated MGB as the only proper defendant. Turning to the merits, the court found it undisputed that MGB failed to provide the plan documents within the statutory 30-day window, rejecting MGB’s argument that its obligation was satisfied because Haldeman’s counsel already possessed the documents from another client’s matter. The court found that MGB’s conduct “was at odds with such a justification” because “MGB never told Haldeman’s counsel that she already possessed the Plan Documents” and “repeatedly promised to promptly deliver the Plan Documents[.]” Furthermore, comments from MGB such as “the need to ‘confirm…the most up-to-date version’…invited the inference that Haldeman’s counsel would not be justified in relying on earlier-produced documents concerning the same or similar plans.” Having determined non-compliance, the court explained that whether to impose a penalty turns on the “totality of the circumstances,” with prejudice and bad faith as relevant, although not required, considerations. The court found Haldeman had shown sufficient prejudice, reasoning that ERISA’s “elaborate scheme” for beneficiaries to learn their rights “is built around reliance on the face of written plan documents,” and she was deprived of those documents while preparing her appeal regardless of whether the ultimate outcome was affected. As for bad faith, “the Court does not find bad faith on the record before it,” but “it does find that MGB’s continued pattern of promising a prompt response, then failing to provide the Plan Documents or alert Haldeman’s counsel to the fact that she already possessed them, reflects a disregard of its statutory obligations.” The court thus found that “a modest penalty award is warranted,” and chose a “middle route” of $5,000 as an appropriate sanction. Finally, the court agreed that Haldeman was entitled to an award of attorney’s fees and costs because she had achieved “some degree of success on the merits” under the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co. The court further found that the First Circuit’s five-factor discretionary test favored an award: (1) MGB, while not acting in bad faith, made little effort to meet its disclosure obligations despite repeated prompting; (2) there was no suggestion MGB could not pay; (3) an award would deter MGB and similarly situated administrators from treating document requests with similar indifference; (4) the suit ultimately secured documents Haldeman needed to litigate her appeal; and (5) MGB “adduced little in the way of legal argument or facts that suggest its position in this dispute ever had merit.” Haldeman was directed to submit her fee motion within fourteen days.

Withdrawal Liability & Unpaid Contributions

Second Circuit

IAC Dayton, LLC v. National Retirement Fund, No. 25 CV 7243 (VB), 2026 WL 2690039 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 14, 2026) (Judge Vincent L. Briccetti). IAC Dayton, LLC and International Automotive Components Group North America, Inc. (together, IAC) were contributing employers to the Legacy Plan of the National Retirement Fund, a multiemployer pension plan, from 2007 to 2020. In calculating IAC’s resulting withdrawal liability, the Fund’s actuary used a 2.53% discount rate drawn from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s (PBGC) published rate for plans undergoing a mass withdrawal, rather than the Fund’s 7.3% minimum funding rate. The Fund initially assessed IAC $6,724,094 in withdrawal liability. (It later reduced that amount to $3,565,687 after correcting an unrelated error.) IAC contended that the discount rate should track the minimum funding rate, which it calculated would reduce its liability to $226,731. The Fund disputed that figure and asserted the correct number using that rate would fall between $1.23 and $1.24 million. The dispute proceeded to a two-day arbitration hearing, after which the arbitrator issued an award upholding the Fund’s use of the PBGC rate. He found that ERISA does not confine an actuary’s assessment of a plan’s “anticipated experience” to investment returns alone, that the Fund’s assumptions were reasonable in the aggregate, and that the Fund permissibly selected the PBGC rate after considering the Fund’s particular risk characteristics, including its critical status, negative leverage, frozen benefits, and inability to invest incoming withdrawal liability payments. IAC responded by filing this action to vacate the award under 29 U.S.C. §§ 1401(b)(2) and 1451(c); both sides filed summary judgment motions. The court highlighted the key statutory provision, which is whether an actuary’s chosen discount rate reflects the plan’s “best estimate of anticipated experience” under 29 U.S.C. § 1393(a), and ruled that the arbitrator “clearly erred” in upholding the Fund’s use of the PBGC rate. The court explained that ERISA requires the discount rate to reflect the plan’s actual anticipated investment returns, not a risk-free benchmark untethered to the plan’s own assets. The Fund’s actuary “admitted he did not consider the Fund’s assets when selecting the discount rate,” and testified that “he did not recall the chances the assets of the Fund would exceed the PBGC rate, but he believed it was in the range of 90 to 95%.” Furthermore, “the Fund’s investment strategy was not focused on annuities or other risk-free assets,” and there was “no evidence that the Fund intended to shift its investment allocation.” Thus, there was no basis for assessing withdrawal at the highly conservative rate proposed by the Fund. The court rejected the Fund’s “risk transfer” theory – that a withdrawing employer no longer shares in the Fund’s investment risk and so may properly be charged something close to a risk-free rate – as a theory “repeatedly rejected” by other courts. The court also observed that this theory cut both ways because IAC’s withdrawal prevented it from benefiting from any over-performance that might reduce future contribution obligations. The court further held that the arbitrator erred in relying on the Actuarial Standards of Practice to justify the PBGC rate, explaining that “ERISA does not yield to the Actuarial Standards of Practice”; statutory language controls. Finally, the court rejected IAC’s alternative argument that withdrawal liability and minimum funding discount rates must be identical, agreeing instead with the weight of authority that “withdrawal liability and minimum funding must be similar though not necessarily identical.” This was only a minor setback for IAC, however, as the court granted IAC’s motion for summary judgment and vacated the arbitrator’s award. It remanded the matter to the arbitrator for recalculation, holding, “In the absence of additional evidence sufficient to support a different discount rate, the Court presumes withdrawal liability should be calculated using the 7.3% rate which the Actuary put forth as his best estimate of the plan’s anticipated experience.”