Today marks the five-year anniversary from the very first ERISA Watch newsletter that I sent out on August 29, 2014.  If you’ve been a subscriber since the beginning, you have received over 250 ERISA Watch case summary emails from me over the past five years.  The number of subscribers has more than doubled to a current count of 487!

I want to take a moment to thank you all for being part of this forum that has entertained my musings of the litigation developments in our field over the past several years.  Staying on top of the recent decisions and getting out the newsletter on a weekly basis (with very few exceptions) has been quite the labor of love but I truly enjoy this work and hope that it brings something useful to all of your practices (even the defense attorneys!) Continue Reading Let’s Celebrate! Happy 5th Birthday to ERISA Watch!

This week’s notable decision is Dorman v. Charles Schwab Corp., No. 18-15281, __ F.3d __, 2019 WL 3926990 (9th Cir. Aug. 20, 2019), where the court addressed the question of whether ERISA claims can be subject to mandatory arbitration.  In short, the Court determined that an arbitration agreement in the Schwab Retirement Savings and Investment Plan (“the Plan”) is enforceable.  To get there, the court revisited and overruled prior Ninth Circuit authority.  

By way of background, in Amaro v. Continental Can Co., 724 F.2d 747 (9th Cir. 1984), the Ninth Circuit held that exhaustion of arbitration procedures for contractual grievances is not required prior to bringing a statutory claim under ERISA Section 510.  The court reversed and remanded the district court’s decision that the arbitration award on a contractual grievance that was adverse to former employees of the company barred their ERISA claims. Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Holds that ERISA Claims Can be Subject to Mandatory Individual Arbitration

This week’s notable decision is O’Rourke v. N. California Elec. Workers Pension Plan, No. 17-17419, __F.3d__, 2019 WL 3850604 (9th Cir. Aug. 16, 2019), a case involving a dispute over the payment of early retirement benefits through a multiemployer ERISA plan.  The court was tasked with deciding whether Defendant abused its discretion by determining that Plaintiff’s work as an administrator for an electrical workers’ union falls within the Plan’s definition of “Prohibited Employment.”  The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Plan’s board of trustees (“Board”), and for the reasons below, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the decision.  

The Plan provides for an early retirement benefit for participants at age fifty-five if they have accumulated ten or more years of covered employment.  No benefits are paid for either normal pensions or early pensions for any month in which a participant works in “Prohibited Employment.”  For participants under the age sixty-five, the Plan defines “Prohibited Employment” as “the performance of services in any capacity in the Electrical Industry.”  “Electrical Industry” is defined as “all branches of the Electrical Trade in the United States.” The Plan does not define “Electrical Trade.”  Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Upholds Pension Plan’s Denial of Early Retirement Benefits for Participant’s Union Work