Crime, punishment and paying restitution to victims
Paying restitution to victims is an important aspect of the criminal justice system.
Post-disability earnings – profit distribution or income?
Two recent cases looked at monies paid to disability insurance claimants after the onset of disability and analyzed the question of whether the monies constituted income or profit distributions. Although the claimants lost in both Fine v. Sun Life Assur. Co. of Canada, 2015 WL 1534513 (E.D. Va. April 6, 2015) and in Bencivenga v. […]
What are pre-disability earnings?
A recent ruling received by DeBofsky, Sherman & Casciari examined the issue of how to determine pre-disability earnings. In Cheney v. Standard Ins. Co., 2015 WL 2015 U.S.Dist.LEXIS 30918 (N.D.Ill. March 13, 2015)(Issue: Pre-Disability Earnings). In an earlier ruling (Cheney v. Standard Ins. Co., No. 13 C 4269, 2014 WL 4259861 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 28, […]
In ERISA, removal of deterrence incentivizes negative behavior
In 2013, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals electrified the ERISA world when it ruled that in addition to paying benefits due after a wrongful rejection of a disability insurance claim, the Life Insurance Company of North America (LINA), a Cigna Corp. subsidiary, would also have to disgorge the profits it earned on the […]
Releases of employment-related claims may unintentionally release ERISA benefit claims
Signing a severance agreement or settlement agreement with an employer that contains a general release may unintentionally bar a claimant from pursuing a disability benefit claim under ERISA. That was the lesson learned by Dr. Thomas Gonda, Jr., who worked as a thoracic surgeon at Kaiser Permanente until he became disabled due to cognitive impairments […]
A re-examination of ERISA civil procedure
Although lawsuits challenging employee benefit denials under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) are brought as “civil actions” in accordance with the United States Code, the manner in which such cases are adjudicated deviates from the norm according to a recent article authored by Mark DeBofsky, “A Critical Appraisal of the Current State of […]