Episode 322 -- Checking in on Caremark Cases
A recent decision out of the Eastern District of Virginia, Matthews v. Senior Life Ins. Co., provides a helpful reminder that TCPA complaints do not satisfy Rule 8’s pleading standard if they do not plausibly link the...more
Under the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Cunningham v. Cornell University, No. 23-1007 (April 17, 2025), plaintiffs asserting that ERISA plan administrators engaged in prohibited transactions under ERISA Section 406 are...more
In Cunningham v. Cornell University,1 the Supreme Court unanimously held that plaintiffs who bring a prohibited transaction claim under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (“ERISA”) are only...more
by Alex Smith The Supreme Court recently issued a decision regarding the pleading standards for ERISA prohibited transactions claims in a case involving Cornell’s 403(b) plan to resolve a federal circuit court split. Under...more
Many sponsors and fiduciaries of ERISA retirement plans had been hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Cunningham v. Cornell University (No. 23-1007) would articulate new pleading standards that would slow the...more
On April 17, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States clarified the pleading requirements to bring a prohibited-transaction claim under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) in Cunningham v....more
On April 17, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, resolved a circuit split and established a plaintiff-friendly pleading standard for ERISA prohibited transaction claims in Cunningham v. Cornell University,...more
The US Supreme Court has issued a unanimous opinion that could lead to an increase in litigation for prohibited transaction claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA)....more
In a unanimous ruling, the New York Court of Appeals held that the New York State Legislature did not alter the substantive pleading requirements of Section 11(b) of the Court of Claims Act (the “Act”) for claims brought...more
On April 17, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Cunningham v Cornell University, addressing the pleading standard applicable to prohibited transaction claims under the Employee Retirement Income...more
In a decision poised to change the landscape of Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) litigation, on April 17, 2025, the Supreme Court held in Cunningham et al. v. Cornell University et al. that a claimant...more
In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Cunningham v. Cornell University that plaintiffs can satisfy the requirements for pleading prohibited party-in interest transactions under ERISA section 406(a) without...more
On April 17, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion that has the potential to make it more difficult for defendants to have excess fee cases for 401(k) or 403(b) plans dismissed at an early stage of...more
In a unanimous decision reversing dismissal of prohibited transaction claims based on fees paid to defined contribution plan recordkeepers, the Supreme Court held that ERISA’s prohibited transaction exemptions are affirmative...more
Two companion cases from the Fourth District Court of Appeals — Wilson Energy and Bethel Oil & Gas — are currently on appeal at the Ohio Supreme Court. Both cases involve similar facts and require the resolution of the same...more
Last week, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in NVIDIA Corp. v. E. Ohman J:Or Fonder AB., Case No. 23-970, to address two fundamental questions about how federal securities fraud cases must be pled to survive...more
Over the last ten years, we have seen a marked shift from the Delaware Chancery Court chipping away at corporate board member liability claims. In a number of seminal cases involving Boeing airplane crashes (In re the Boeing...more
As we have often explained in the articles in which we have examined fraud claims, to withstand a motion to dismiss, the plaintiff must plead fraud with particularity as required under CPLR § 3106(b), cannot lump all the...more
Nearly a decade ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued three decisions clarifying and tightening the standard for asserting plausible overtime claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in the...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently announced that Title VII plaintiffs are no longer required to plead an “ultimate employment decision" to properly allege a disparate treatment claim. Applying a strict...more
Recently, federal appellate courts have begun tightening the pleading standards for ERISA breach of fiduciary duty claims based on the fees or performance of funds in 401(k) and 403(b) plans. To state a viable claim based on...more
A federal court in Wisconsin recently allowed a putative ERISA class action in Lucero v. Credit Union Ret. Plan Ass’n to proceed to discovery on the claim that a 401(k) plan paid excessive recordkeeping fees. This decision...more
How much detail must a plaintiff allege to meet the heightened pleading standards that apply in an FCA case? Appellate courts have taken different approaches but given a chance to address a seeming circuit split, the Supreme...more
Currently, providers have different risks of potential False Claims Act (“FCA”) liability depending on where they are geographically located due to the difference in the standards required by the U.S. Courts of Appeals...more
On April 21, 2022, the Northern District of Georgia granted a motion to dismiss a False Claims Act (“FCA”) suit brought against ERMI LLC (“ERMI”), a medical device manufacturer, describing the complaint as a “shotgun...more