In a ruling recently secured by DeBofsky Sherman & Casciari, P.C., a federal court definitively ruled that prevailing defendants in ERISA cases are rarely entitled to fees. In Geiger v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 2016 WL 5391206 (N.D. Ill. September 27, 2016) (opinion), where a court upheld Aetna’s termination of disability benefits (currently on appeal), the court denied the insurer’s application for fees.
In a case factually reminiscent of Booton v. Lockheed Medical Benefits Plan, 110 F.3d 1461, 1463 (9th Cir. 1997), as both cases involved claims for extensive dental reconstruction following accidents, a federal court in California found an abuse of discretion in a benefit plan’s denial of dental benefits.
In ERISA litigation, the availability of an attorney fee award pursuant to 29 U.S.C. Sec. 1132(g) gives an incentive to attorneys to take on such difficult cases. But what happens if a court fails to decide the matter, but instead, remands the case to reconsider the issues presented. In Gross v. Sun Life Assur.Co. of Canada, […]
DeBofsky & Associates recently won an attorney fee award in an ERISA case.
Fee awards made pursuant to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act’s (ERISA) fee-shifting statutory provision (29 U.S.C. Section 1132(g)) are a critical part of ERISA litigation. A ruling last month from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Donachie v. Liberty Life Assurance Co. of Boston, 2014 U.S.App.LEXIS 4593 (2nd Cir. March 11, 2014), clarified […]
In civil actions brought under statutes that permit the winning party to recover attorney fees, fee litigation can take on a life of its own as illustrated by a recent ruling issued by a U.S. District Court in Connecticut. In an earlier opinion, the court entered judgment in favor of the plaintiff, Paige Fairbaugh, who […]