Your ERISA Watch – Eighth Circuit Rules That Reliance Standard’s “Haphazard System of Ships Passing in the Night” Led to a Breach of Fiduciary Duty

Skelton v. Radisson Hotel Bloomington, No. 21-2641, __ F.4th __, 2022 WL 1434778 (8th Cir. May 6, 2022) (Before Circuit Judges Gruender, Benton, and Erickson).

ERISA-governed life insurance benefit plans are typically administered jointly by the employer and an insurance company. The exact duties of each party vary from plan to plan, but often the division of responsibility is confusing. It is common for one party to be uncertain as to what the other is supposed to be doing, and frequently neither party possesses full information as to which employees have signed up for what, and whether those employees have met all the requirements for eligibility or enrollment. Continue Reading Eighth Circuit Rules That Reliance Standard’s “Haphazard System of Ships Passing in the Night” Led to a Breach of Fiduciary Duty

On this month’s episode our host Elizabeth Hopkins interviews Ed, a father whose daughter struggled with an eating disorder when she was a teenager over a decade ago. The family had to take out a second mortgage on their home in order to pay for life-saving treatment at a residential facility after their healthcare plan insurer refused to pay and they could obtain no help from the state agency tasked with regulating health insurance.

A lot has changed since that time.  But more remains to be done because every day insurance companies still refuse to pay for residential treatment prescribed by doctors for patients suffering from eating disorders and other mental illnesses and these patients are either unable to obtain the treatment they need to recover or their families are forced to go into debt to pay what should be covered by their insurance.

Spring break continues with another slow week ERISA-wise in the courts. But go on an Easter egg hunt for one case that decides that speeding is not a crime, another that allows a claim based on the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to go forward against the government for statutory amendments to ERISA, and other interesting decisions below.

Continue Reading Your ERISA Watch – Week of April 13, 2022