Rick Pearl Discusses Supreme Court ERISA Case Oral Arguments With Benefits Pro

Benefits and executive compensation partner Rick Pearl discussed oral arguments for US Supreme Court case Cunningham et al. v. Cornell University, et al. with Benefits Pro. The decision will resolve a split among circuit courts over Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) standards and ultimately dictate how easy or difficult it is for workers to argue that retirement plans violate ERISA rules.

"There were two issues the [Supreme] Court and the parties seemed to struggle with the most," explained Pearl. "The first was the pleading standard for what the Court and parties referred to as 'prohibited transactions' claims, and whether ERISA or a federal pleading standard requires a plaintiff to plead more than just the occurrence of a transaction that falls within ERISA's prohibited transactions provision, particularly in 406(a). The second issue was whether there was some mechanism for a district court to dispose of cases at the pleading stage or shortly thereafter without requiring defendants to engage in full discovery."