Standing

Subscribe to Standing via RSS

The Colorado Supreme Court’s decisions upholding the dismissal of claims against two separate disability plans under ERISA may be under review by the Supreme Court, following submission of the joint petition for a writ of certiorari filed in Olivar v. Public Serv. Employee Credit Union Long Term Disability Plan and Burton v. Colorado Access a/k/a Colorado Access Long Term Disability Plan, No. 17-1543.
Continue Reading To Sue Or Not To Sue Under ERISA: Circuit Split about Proper Party Defendants and Service of Process May Be Resolved

In Eden Surgical Ctr. v. Cognizant Tech. Sols. Corp., No. 16-56422, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 10597 (9th Cir., Apr. 26, 2018), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the District Court’s Order dismissing the Complaint of an out-of-network healthcare provider attempting to pursue its patient’s rights under an ERISA plan based on an assignment of benefits. The defendant health plan’s claim administrator, Aetna, determined that benefits were not payable under the plan because the patient had not satisfied the plan’s deductible. Plaintiff brought this action on behalf of its patient challenging that benefit determination. The Ninth Circuit found that the plaintiff’s Complaint was properly dismissed by the district court because the patient’s health benefit plan did not permit assignments.
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Rejects Arguments Challenging the Enforceability of an ERISA Plan Anti-Assignment Provision

In Soehnlen v. Fleet Owners Ins. Fund, 844 F.3d 576 (6th Cir. 2016), an employer, its CEO, and an hourly employee (for themselves and as representatives of a putative class of similarly situated employees) sued the defendant for violating ERISA and PPACA (Obamacare) by maintaining per-participant and per-beneficiary caps on benefits. Plaintiff employer bought supplemental health insurance to eliminate those caps. The Plan asserted that it was a grandfathered plan and therefore not required to eliminate the caps.

The district court dismissed plaintiffs’ claims for lack of standing, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed, providing another example of the tightening of federal standing after Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S.Ct. 1540 (2016). Spokeo is discussed in more detail in a previous post.
Continue Reading Employer lacks standing to sue multi-employer plan for violation of ERISA and PPACA

Lee v. Verizon Commc’ns, Inc., — F.3d –, 2016 WL 4926159 (5th Cir. Sept. 15, 2016), held that a defined benefit pension plan participant does not have Article III standing to challenge the plan’s alleged violation of ERISA, in the absence of “concrete injury” to himself.

The case is a putative class action growing out of an amendment to Verizon’s pension plan that terminated it for retirees and replaced it with an annuity. One of the claims asserted fiduciary misconduct in violation of 29 U.S.C. § 1109(a), which requires a fiduciary to “make good … any losses to the plan” from a breach of duty. In an unreported 2015 decision, 623 Fed.Appx. 132 (5th Cir. 2015) (Lee 2015), the court had affirmed the dismissal of that claim for lack of standing. Lee 2015 had held that, though the plaintiff had statutory standing to assert a violation of ERISA by a plan fiduciary, he did not have Article III standing because “standing for defined-benefit plan participants requires imminent risk of default by the plan, such that the participant’s benefits are adversely affected,” and he had not alleged any likelihood of such injury.

The plaintiff petitioned for certiorari, and the Supreme Court granted the petition and vacated Lee 2015 and remanded it for reconsideration in light of Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S.Ct. 1540 (2016). Spokeo had addressed the question whether and when a statutory violation satisfied the concrete harm required for Article III standing.  
Continue Reading “Bare violation” of ERISA without concrete injury does not confer standing

In North Jersey Brain & Spine Ctr. v. Aetna, Inc., — F.3d –, 2015 WL 5295125 (3d Cir. Sep. 11, 2015), the court addressed the question “whether a patient’s explicit assignment of payment of insurance benefits to her healthcare provider, without direct reference to the right to file suit, is sufficient to give the provider standing to sue for those benefits under ERISA § 502(a)[.]”
Continue Reading Third Circuit Rules That Assignment of Plan Benefits Confers Standing to Sue

In Humana Health Plan, Inc. v. Nguyen, 785 F.3d 1023 (5th Cir. 2015), Humana entered into a Plan Management Agreement (“PMA”) with the API Enterprises Employee Benefits Plan. The PMA stated that API had the right to make all discretionary decisions about the plan’s administration and management. The PMA authorized Humana to provide “subrogation/recovery services” to the plan.
Continue Reading Plan Manager Was Not a Fiduciary For Purposes of Subrogation Claim Standing