September 2020 ERISA Litigation Update:

Given the continuing wave of ERISA litigation, this article has become a mainstay of The Speed Reader. A sample of recent cases is provided below.

The most common type of ERISA case for approximately the past fourteen years has involved retirement plan participants’ allegations that plan fiduciaries caused participants to pay excessive recordkeeping and investment fees and included poorly-performing investment options in the plan. Recent cases in this category include the following:

• Ortiz v. American Airlines, Inc. (decided by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on August 5, 2020);
• Bhatia v. McKinsey & Company, Inc. (settlement agreement submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on August 10, 2020);
• Bailey v. LinkedIn Corporation (complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on August 14, 2020); and
• Walker v. iHeart Communications Inc. (complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on August 19, 2020). 
  
  
• Scalia v. Robert Walton, Jr., and Hadsell Chemical Processing Simple IRA Plan (default judgment entered by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio on August 25, 2020):  During a plan investigation, DOL auditors found that the individual defendant withheld voluntary contributions from employees’ pay but failed to deposit those funds into the employees’ plan accounts in a timely manner during 2015. Instead, that defendant held the funds in the company’s general operating account. Thus, the court has ordered the defendant to restore $65,842 to the plan ($53,240 in unremitted employee contributions and $12,602 in lost earnings). The court has also barred that individual from acting as a service provider or fiduciary to any ERISA-covered plan in the future.    

Another type of recent ERISA case is as follows:

Scalia v. Robert Walton, Jr., and Hadsell Chemical Processing Simple IRA Plan (default judgment entered by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio on August 25, 2020):  During a plan investigation, DOL auditors found that the individual defendant withheld voluntary contributions from employees’ pay but failed to deposit those funds into the employees’ plan accounts in a timely manner during 2015. Instead, that defendant held the funds in the company’s general operating account. Thus, the court has ordered the defendant to restore $65,842 to the plan ($53,240 in unremitted employee contributions and $12,602 in lost earnings). The court has also barred that individual from acting as a service provider or fiduciary to any ERISA-covered plan in the future.