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

Breach of Fiduciary Duty

Third Circuit

Johnson v. The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., No. 2:20-CV-01493-CCW, 2021 WL 3417843 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 3, 2021) (Judge Christy Criswell Wiegand). In this case plaintiffs alleged that defendants, ERISA plan fiduciaries, breached their duties of prudence and loyalty by overpaying certain administrative and record-keeping services and that these excessive fees and costs demonstrated imprudence and disloyalty. Defendants brought a motion to dismiss. The court ruled that plaintiffs’ allegations “stop short of crossing the threshold from possible to probable.” The court found that the plan’s recordkeeping fees trended downward for the period at issue which pointed in the direction of prudence, not imprudence. The court ruled that plaintiffs’ claims for failure to monitor could not stand without a viable claim for breach of fiduciary duty. The court granted the motion to dismiss with leave to amend.
Continue Reading Your ERISA Watch – Week of August 11, 2021

This week’s notable decision threads the fine line between ERISA and state law preemption. In Halperin v. Richards, No. 20-2793, 2021 WL 3184305 (7th Cir. July 28, 2021) (Circuit Judges Kanne, Rovner, and Hamilton), the Seventh Circuit considered bankruptcy creditors’ claims against a company’s directors and officers for inflating stock value to conceal the…