February 2026 ERISA Litigation Update: 

Given the continuing wave of ERISA litigation, this article has become a mainstay of The Speed Reader. 

The most common type of ERISA case involves retirement plan participants’ allegations that plan fiduciaries caused participants to pay excessive recordkeeping and investment fees and included one or more poorly-performing investment options in the plan. Recent cases in this category include the following:

• Rajappan v. Bloomberg L.P. (complaint filed on January 29 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York)
• Lowbruck v. Dell Technologies, Inc. (complaint filed on January 28 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas)  
• Peeler v. Bayada Home Health Care (dismissed on January 27 by U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina)
• Anderson v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee (on January 16, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear this case)
• Dalton v. Freeman (procedural ruling issued on December 30 by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California)

In this connection, the DOL has recently filed briefs in several of these cases, urging courts to adopt pro-employer approaches for plan fiduciaries that have prudently managed their retirement plans. More specifically, those briefs have argued that (1) to plead properly an imprudent-investment claim, plaintiffs should be required to show a meaningful benchmark rather than simply pointing to another investment option that outperformed the challenged investment; and (2) plaintiffs should bear the burden of proving that losses were caused by the defendants’ conduct.

With respect to ERISA cases outside the category referenced above, cases continue to be litigated regarding plan forfeitures. Plaintiffs in these cases (who are retirement plan participants) allege that plan fiduciaries breached their ERISA duties by using forfeitures to fund matching contributions, instead of using forfeitures to pay plan expenses or to restore certain employees’ forfeited accounts. Most courts have dismissed these cases when the plan document provided fiduciaries with discretion regarding the use of forfeitures. Recent cases of that type include the following:

• Jacob v. RTX Corporation (dismissed on January 22 by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia):  The plan document provided that “all forfeitures under the Plan shall be used to reduce future Employer Contributions…and to pay administrative expenses…”
• Curtis v. Amazon.com Services, LLC (dismissed on January 16 by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington):  Per the plan document, fiduciaries had the discretion to use forfeitures to “(a) reduce future Employer Contributions, (b) reduce Plan administrative fees and expenses, and (c) restore Accounts of reemployed Former Participants, in any order as directed by the Plan Administrator.” 

The DOL recently filed briefs in some of these forfeiture cases, supporting plan fiduciaries. For example, the DOL’s January 30 brief in the case of Barragan v. Honeywell International, Inc. states that “No employer is under any obligation to create a retirement plan at all, much less any specified level of benefits. Incentivizing plan creation and protecting flexibility is in the interest of the American worker,” and “Mr. Barragan’s theory [i.e., forfeitures must always be used first to pay plan participants’ administrative expenses] is counterproductive and should be disposed of expeditiously by this Court.”