In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that under ERISA, plan administrators must distribute plan assets in accordance with the terms of lawful plan documents without regard to a waiver of benefits contained in a divorce decree. In Kennedy v. Plan Administrator for DuPont Savings & Investment Plan, the plan administrator distributed the proceeds from a savings plan to a deceased employee’s ex-wife who was listed as the beneficiary on the plan documents despite the fact that she had earlier waived all rights to the benefits in a divorce decree.
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