Both the Internal Revenue Code and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act have rules that prevent assignments of retirement benefits in order to ensure that retirees actually receive the benefits that they were promised. ERISA flatly states that “each pension plan” must provide that benefits under the plan cannot be “assigned or alienated.” There are […]
The phrase “total and permanent disability” can be subject to multiple meanings, as a recent ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals pointed out. In Tompkins v. Central Laborers’ Pension Fund, 2013 U.S.App.LEXIS 5161 (7th Cir. March 13, 2013), the appellate court determined that, even in the face of ambiguity, a pension plan administrator offered an interpretation of that phrase which was reasonable and within the scope of his/her discretionary authority when interpreting the plan.
Lump-sum pension distributions are frequently the subject of litigation and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals addressed such a case in Dennison v. MONY Life Retirement Income Security Plan for Employees, 2013 U.S.App.LEXIS 4651 (7th Cir. March 6, 2013). The named plaintiff in a class action, John Dennison, was employed by MONY (Mutual of […]
The scope of remedies available under Employee Retirement Income Security Act due to an employer or plan administrator’s breach of fiduciary duty is undergoing a dramatic transformation in the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling. The most recent example is Gearlds v. Entergy Services Inc., 2013 U.S.App.LEXIS 3831 (5th Cir. Feb. 19, 2013). That […]
Pension plans in the United States have undergone a dramatic transformation over the past 30 years. The traditional defined-benefit plan which offers an annuity for a stated amount based on salary and years of service has been virtually eliminated and replaced by defined-contribution plans, popularly known as the “401(k) plan,” where the employee contributes a […]