ERISA Attorney Blogger Comments on Tullis v. UMB Bank
ERISA legal blogger, otherwise known as attorney Stephen Rosenberg, comments on our June 22, 2008 post entitled "Rights of Individual Plan-Holders Expanded by Sixth Circuit" with his usual insight. See below for an excerpt of his June 30, 2008 post.
"There are two particularly interesting side notes about this. First, it illustrates a particular point I - and others - made in a number of media outlets after the Supreme Court issued its opinion in LaRue, namely that, while it may not result in an avalanche of litigation that otherwise would not have been filed, the ruling is certainly going to lead to an increase in the filing of smaller cases on behalf of a few participants in circumstances that, in the past, would not have generated suits unless a class wide action could be brought. Second, the case presages what may be the dying off, by a thousand cuts, of the long held use of standing to cut off ERISA breach of fiduciary duty suits at the earliest stages of procedural wrangling, long before any litigation over the merits of a case, something which occurred at the federal district court level in the original LaRue case itself. Roy Harmon, over at his Health Plan Law blog, has a detailed analysis of this question, one I have been thinking about since LaRue was decided but which Roy has thankfully saved me from addressing in detail at this point.
Click to read the full text version of "From Preemption to ERISA Standing, and Lots of Things In-Between."
