ERISA, Employee Benefits & Trust Litigation

Bailey Glasser handles class actions and high stakes individual actions involving employee pension benefits—including employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), 401(k) plans and other defined contribution or individual account plans, and traditional defined benefit pension plans—and trust litigation involving family and other private trusts. Our employment benefits attorneys litigate these actions throughout the United States under the federal employee benefits law known as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and under state trust law.

Our clients include employees, former employees, retirees, and trust beneficiaries, as well as businesses and other professionals victimized by fraud, investment mismanagement, hidden and undisclosed fees, and illegal benefit cutbacks. Our employee benefits lawyers have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for our clients in litigation claiming breaches of fiduciary duty, prohibited transactions, and other violations of the law. Our fiduciary duty practice also includes claims in the growing area of ERISA welfare benefit plan litigation, such as claims challenging systematic denials of treatments under medical plans under policies that violate ERISA.

Our work has received national attention and awards. Gregory Porter, our Practice Group Leader, has received the top ranking (Band One) for his ERISA work by the global legal ranking company Chambers & Partners, and the Practice Group is Chambers ranked as well on the national level. The group as a whole is also on the Best Law Firms National Tier for ERISA litigation, as well as Tier One in Washington, D.C. for the same practice. 

ESOPs

Bailey Glasser focuses on ESOPs that invest in private companies. Federal pension law provides generous tax subsidies to shareholders and companies that sell their stock to an ESOP. In exchange for these tax benefits, federal law requires that an independent trustee decides whether the stock transaction should happen. Independent trustees are supposed to act like a hypothetical prudent buyer in the market for a private company. Unfortunately, in our experience, these trustees do not conduct adequate due diligence, do not have a sophisticated understanding of corporate transactions, and are more interested in collecting trustee fees paid by the employer than doing their job.

The U.S. Department of Labor has long identified ESOPs as an enforcement priority due to rampant abuses by plan service providers, and the firm has worked closely with the DOL on lawsuits. Bailey Glasser’s ESOP practice strives to obtain real money for our clients and create real changes in the industry.

Multi-Trust Class Actions

Bailey Glasser’s ERISA lawyers have deep experience with complex, multi-plan class actions involving esoteric trading practices and opaque financial products. We represented hundreds of retirement plans in class actions against major financial institutions engaged in conflicted and imprudent securities lending practices that cost the plans millions. In one such case, against Northern Trust Company in Chicago federal court, we recovered $36 million for our clients. We also successfully prosecuted a complex, unlawful tax-fee against BNY Mellon on behalf of thousands of family trusts, ultimately recovering millions for our clients. Currently, we are prosecuting an ERISA class action against Intel Corp. involving poor performing hedge funds and private equity investments.

401(k) Plans

Bailey Glasser has a long history of representing employees and retirees harmed by hidden or excessive fees, or imprudent investments, in their 401(k) plans. Our experienced team understands the various ways financial-services companies can profit from workers’ hard-earned retirement savings. We have successfully litigated at all levels, including the United States Supreme Court, recovered over $100 million on behalf of our clients, and provided meaningful improvements to retirement plans across the country.

Pension Plans

Our team represents plan participants and beneficiaries in claiming the benefits that they were promised, and earned, under the written terms of their pension plans. In addition, plan sponsors are prohibited by law from amending qualified plans to decrease participants’ “accrued benefits” and from eliminating or reducing certain “protected benefits.” We have attorneys experienced in “anti-cutback rule” litigation. Bailey Glasser has recently been spearheading litigation alleging that actuarial assumptions used to determine optional forms of benefits or early retirement benefits are outdated. We are seeking losses to participants caused by use of outdated actuarial assumptions that cause benefits to be paid that are not actuarially equivalent to the annual monthly benefit (typically expressed as a single life annuity) payable at normal retirement age.

Long-Term Disability

More than 11 million people in the U.S. who have had COVID struggle with serious long-term health impacts that prevent them from working as they once did (long COVID). Other professionals may have compromised immune systems that require them to stay home to avoid potential COVID exposure as a matter of life and death. Many of these impacted individuals have long-term disability coverage through their company insurance policies that are governed by ERISA (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act) that could financially assist them through these difficult times. Our COVID-19 Long-Term Disability team fights for benefits you may be entitled to receive. For more about our long-term disability work, please visit here.

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Experience

Making the Law

• Won a unanimous decision in the United States Supreme Court in Sulyma v. Intel Corp, a case brought on behalf of participants in Intel’s 401(k) plan concerning alleged imprudent investments in several of the Plan’s investment options. The Supreme Court decision set new standards for ERISA’s statute of limitations.
• Won a $30 million trial judgment in Brundle v. Wilmington Trust, a case involving multiple breaches of duty by the trustee and complex valuation issues in an ESOP transaction; won a complete affirmance by the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, establishing new law on ESOPs that has been cited nationwide.
• Obtained a precedent-setting decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Allen v. GreatBanc Trust Co., which established important pleading standards in ESOP cases.
• Obtained groundbreaking order that ESOP-owned company’s indemnification of ESOP trustee violated ERISA in McMaken v. Chemonics.

ESOPs

• On behalf of participants in the McBride & Sons ESOP, we reached a $16.5 million settlement over claims related to the ESOP between 2013 and 2017. Godfrey v. GreatBanc Trust Co.
• Won a $30 million trial judgment in Brundle v. Wilmington Trust, a case involving multiple breaches of duty by the trustee and complex valuation issues in an ESOP transaction; won a complete affirmance by the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, establishing new law on ESOPs that has been cited nationwide.
• Settled an ESOP lawsuit for $19.5 million, in Jessop v. Larsen, working closely with the US Department of Labor; yielded an average class member recovery of over $30,000
• Recovered $19.5 million for ESOP participants just before trial. Choate v. Wilmington Trust
• Recovered $12 million for ESOP participants after one-week trial. Nistra v. Reliance Trust
• Recovered $6.25 million for ESOP participants. Casey v. Reliance Trust
• Recovered $5 million for ESOP participants even though plaintiffs had signed releases. Fiorito v. Wilmington Trust

401(k) Plans

• Reached a $15 million settlement following allegations that 401(k) plan fiduciaries should have removed former employer company stock from their newly created plan as part of ERISA’s duties of prudence and diversification. Snider v. Administrative Committee of Seventy Seven Energy, Inc. Retirement & Savings Plan
• Recovered $17 million for plan participants from Neuberger Berman in case alleging imprudent investment in proprietary fund. Bekker v. Neuberger
• Settled a lawsuit against Franklin Templeton for $26 million where the plaintiffs alleged that Franklin Templeton stuffed its own employee 401(k) plan with Franklin Templeton mutual funds despite a conflict of interest. Cryer v. Franklin
• Settled a lawsuit against Fidelity Investments for $12 million where the plaintiffs alleged that Fidelity stuffed its own employee 401(k) plan with Fidelity mutual funds. Bilewicz v. Fidelity

Pensions Plans

• Reached a $59.14 million settlement with Raytheon which centered on participants’ allegations that several Raytheon-sponsored pension plans were providing JSAs and PSAs that were not the actuarial equivalent of a single-life annuity. Cruz v. Raytheon Co.
• Secured a $2.8 million settlement on behalf of nearly 2,000 participants in the Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. Newport News Operations Pension Plan based on allegations that the Plan’s calculation of benefits for participants with joint survivor annuities failed to provide benefits “actuarially equivalent” to single-life annuities. Herndon v. Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc.

Multi-Trust Financial Class Actions

• Settled a complex securities lending action for $36 million against Northern Trust on behalf of hundreds of retirement plans across the country. Diebold v. Northern Trust
• Obtained class certification of hundreds of retirement plans in complex securities lending that settled for $10 million. Glass Dimensions v. State Street
• Settled a multi-state class action against BNY Mellon for $10 million on behalf of hundreds of private family trusts who had been charged hidden fees. Henderson v. BNY Mellon
• Prosecuting multi-plan class action alleging imprudent investments in hedge funds and private equity that cost plans billions of dollars. Won groundbreaking case in Supreme Court that allowed case to proceed. Sulyma v. Intel Corp.

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