Medical Insurance
A federal class action claims Aetna Life Insurance violates ERISA by refusing to cover lumbar artificial disc replacement surgery due to false claims that the surgery is “experimental and investigational.”
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Supreme Court Adds 11 New Cases to Calendar
Taking up 11 new cases Friday on its way into summer hiatus, the Supreme Court stoked political passions this morning with the addition of cases about school choice and immigrant rights.
Read moreComcast, Intel Cases to Face Supreme Court Scrutiny
Taking up appeals by Comcast and Intel, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to resolve the fate of one $20 billion suit alleging a conspiracy to disadvantage television networks that are wholly black-owned, as well as a case involving retirement plans.
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The Ninth Circuit affirmed that City National Bank engaged in self-dealing and breach of fiduciary duties in its employees’ 401(k) plans, compensating itself with self-approved fees from the plan’s assets.
Read moreDignity Pensions
Dignity Health and its workers have with the help of a mediator reached a settlement “in principle” to end a six-year-old class action accusing the hospital system of underfunding its employee pension plan by $1.5 billion.
Read moreCalifornia Beats Back Challenge of CalSavers Retirement Plan
California’s state-sponsored retirement plan for private workers cleared a major hurdle Friday, with a federal judge tossing a lawsuit brought by an influential anti-tax group that hoped to kill the program before its July launch date.
Read moreIBM Retirement-Fraud Suit Gets New Life From Second Circuit
MANHATTAN (CN) – Reviving securities fraud claims, the Second Circuit ruled Monday that IBM must face a suit by workers
Read moreSuing MIT
A federal judge certified a class of employees who claim that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology charged excessive fees and made poor investments in their retirement plan.
Read moreStates Fight Trump Attack on ERISA Protections
Eleven states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration Labor Department on Thursday, fighting a change in healthcare benefit rules they say will allow insurers and private employers to skirt Affordable Care Act regulations such as required coverage for preexisting conditions.
Read moreMental Health Parity
The Ninth Circuit reversed summary judgment for Catholic Health Initiatives, because an ERISA plan may not pay for medical and surgical patients’ stays at licensed skilled nursing facilities while denying the same benefits to mental health patients for their stays at residential treatment facilities.
Read moreDr Pepper Accused of Using COBRA Against Striking Workers
Eleven Dr Pepper Snapple drivers filed a class action against their employer Tuesday claiming the company illegally forces workers into expensive COBRA health care coverage to break strikes.
Read moreLawsuit Accusing Hospital of Underfunding Pension Plan May Continue
A federal judge on Thursday indicated he would keep alive a five-year-old proposed class action accusing a hospital system with ties to the Catholic Church of exploiting a religious exemption in federal law to underfund its employees’ pensions by $1.5 billion.
Read moreERISA Class Action
Workers claim in a federal complaint that Huntington Bancshares propped up its “failing mutual fund business” by overinvesting their retirement and savings plans in overly expensive Huntington products.
Read moreClass Claims of Denied Mental-Health Coverage Headed to Trial
A class of patients who were denied coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment may take their claims against a benefits administrator to trial, a federal judge ruled Monday.
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Teamsters Must Face Suit by Ex-World Airways Workers
Reviving claims over a defunct airline’s pension plan, the Second Circuit found Tuesday that a former World Airways worker sued the Teamsters union within the legal timeframe.
Read moreHigh Court Expands Religious Exemption for Retirement Plans
The exemption in federal pension law for church retirement plans should apply even to plans not initially established by a church, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday.
Read moreEating Disorders
A man with an acute eating disorder has filed a class action against Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, accusing the health care giant of refusing to cover his medically necessary residential treatment program as it does for other types of mental illness.
Read moreWorkers Cry Foul on BlackRock Retirement Plans
A former employee of the largest private money manager in the world says in a federal class action that the company violated ethics rules by putting employees’ investments into company-run funds to rack up fees and boost profits.
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