ERISA & Fiduciary Litigation

Trusted Counsel for Challenging Times

Assets in employee benefit plans under ERISA now total approximately $6 trillion and cover more than 150 million workers and their dependents, a substantial share of the wealth of the United States. As a result, litigation surrounding ERISA has multiplied. A growing number of lawsuits are being filed against plans, employer sponsors, and fiduciaries. These cases, many of them class actions, have generated multi-million dollar judgments and settlements. Moreover, ERISA litigation and related fiduciary matters are expected to multiply over the next few years due to the turmoil in the financial industry and the decline, sometimes dramatic, in stock prices.

Complex and Varies Litigation

ERISA Litigation

Since ERISA’s enactment in 1974, the firm has represented insurance companies, health maintenance organizations, large employers, self-funded employee benefits plans, and even ERISA participants. Miller & Chevalier’s ERISA and Fiduciary Litigation team routinely handles all types of litigation arising under ERISA, including class action lawsuits concerning challenges to benefits denials, exclusions from coverage, fiduciary liability, and subrogation and reimbursement matters. The firm currently represents ERISA qualified plans in multi-million dollar breach of fiduciary duty actions against former fiduciaries.

We represent plan sponsors, fiduciaries, and service providers of both welfare and pension plans before federal and state courts as well as pre-litigation investigations and audits by the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Our team has significant experience in the area of federal preemption of state laws under ERISA and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Act (FEHBA), the federal law that governs the health care of federal government workers.

Our team includes former DOL and IRS counsel uniquely situated to understand the enforcement perspectives of both agencies, as well as lawyers who began their career dedicated to ERISA litigation and trial lawyers who have developed extensive experience in ERISA matters. Together with our transactional lawyers who concentrate on the substantive issues involving the tax and labor side of ERISA, Miller & Chevalier’s ERISA and Fiduciary Litigation team can supplement its depth with one of the most sophisticated employee benefit groups in the country. Clients hire us for our deep experience, our ability to handle the most sophisticated matters and our record of achievement. They choose us because we are incisive strategists and devoted advocates to their problems.

Appellate Litigation

Appellate advocacy is itself an area of concentration that places a premium on written and oral advocacy skills. These skills are particularly important in ERISA, one of the most complex areas of the law. Our ERISA litigators have the demonstrated experience to translate highly technical subject matter into language and concepts that a non-specialist can understand.

In addition to full-scale representation with briefing and argument in the United States Supreme Court and United States Federal Courts of Appeals, we provide advisory litigation services, including strategic guidance at the early stages of a case by shaping important statutory issues with an eye to subsequent appellate considerations. We have also been asked to revise appellate briefs prepared by other counsel and to provide expert advice on Supreme Court or appellate strategy and procedure in important cases.

Experience in Related Substantive Areas

FEHBA

Miller & Chevalier was instrumental in the drafting and enactment of FEHBA, a close cousin to ERISA which governs health benefits provided to federal employees and retirees. Since FEHBA was enacted, we have been national litigation counsel for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield entities that administer and underwrite the largest FEHBA plan, known as the Service Benefit Plan. The Service Benefit Plan has nearly five million participants and is the largest health benefits plan in the world. For nearly five decades we have served as national litigation counsel for this plan, handling matters at all levels of the federal and state courts, including a landmark case in the United States Supreme Court in 2006, appeals in nearly every United States Court of Appeals, and hundreds of United States District Court and state court matters. These representations have involved all of the most sophisticated disputes and issues that arise in the context of health benefits plans, such as preemption, federal jurisdiction, benefits controversies, subrogation disputes, Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) allegations, class actions, and multi-district litigation.

PBGC

Another aspect of the ERISA and Fiduciary Litigation team’s practice centers on protecting the rights of employees and retirees whose pension plans have failed and are now under the administration of, and subject to the insurance guarantees provided by, the PBGC. This is an expanding area of our practice as a greater number of large pension plans are in jeopardy of termination by companies with poor financial performance or facing bankruptcy. The PBGC’s actions are governed by ERISA, but the ERISA rules applicable to it are unique and exceedingly complicated. Indeed, pursuit of challenges to the PBGC's benefits determinations requires a comprehensive understanding of ERISA, an ability to navigate the PBGC's own informal administrative process, and an ability to manage complex litigation brought by large groups of employees and retirees who have been adversely affected by the PBGC's decisions.