Resource Type: Amicus Briefs

Cunningham v. Cornell
The Pension Rights Center filed a friend of the court brief with the Supreme Court in Cunningham v. Cornell University. The plaintiffs in the case allege that two Cornell University retirement plans were paying unreasonable levels of compensation to the plan’s recordkeeper. The plaintiffs argued that payment of these fees violated to separate sections of […]

Dunne v. Elton Corporation
In the 1940s, Mary Dupont established a trust to pay pensions to the personal employees she, her children, and her future grandchildren, most of whom over the years informed their employees of the pension trust and their right to a pension. The trust, however, turned out not to be adequately funded and no additional contributions […]

Konya v. Lockheed Martin Corporation
Lockheed Martin made a business decision to have its pension plan transfer benefit liabilities to an insurance company. The Department of Labor in 1995 issued guidance on how fiduciaries should select an insurance company in such circumstances. The guidance was, in part, a response to the failure of Executive Life Insurance Company, a large insurance […]

Bafford v. Northrop Grumman Corp
The Pension Rights Center filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circut in Bafford v. Northrop Grumman Corp. on August 10, 2020. Northrup-Grumman’s defined benefit plan, like all such plans, must provide participants with an estimate of their retirement benefits on request. Northrup-Grumman, applying an incorrect benefit formula to a group of […]

Intel Corp. Inv. Policy Comm. v. Sulyma
The Pension Rights Center filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court in Intel Corp. Inv. Policy Comm. v. Sulyma on October 28, 2019 asking the Court to agree with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that sending an e-mail to Christopher Sulyma notifying him that information about his retirement savings plans’ investments was available […]

Thole v. U.S. Bank, N.A.
On September 18, 2019, the Pension Rights Center filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court in Thole v. U.S. Bank, N.A. asking the Supreme Court to reverse a decision by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled that pension plan participants did not have the right to sue to recover investment loses of at least $748 million. […]

Divane v. Northwestern Univ.
On January 22, 2019, the Pension Rights Center joined the AARP Litigation Foundation in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Divane v. Northwestern Univ. The brief asked the Court to overturn the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern of Illinois that had dismissed the case. Several […]

Smith v. OSF Healthcare System, et al.
On December 20, 2018, the Pension Rights Center filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in support of the appellants in Smith v. OSF Healthcare System, et al. The brief argues that the ERISA church plan exemption applies only to plans established and maintained by churches or church pension boards and does […]

Sveen v. Melin
The Pension Rights Center, the Women’s Law Project, and twelve other organizations filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case Sveen v. Melin on February 28, 2018. The brief argues that state laws requiring insurance policies and IRAs to automatically take ex-spouses off of accounts when a couple divorces are unconstitutional. The brief also contends that, […]

Lorna Clause v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, et al.
The Pension Rights Center filed an amicus brief in support of a case asking the Supreme Court to reverse a Court of Appeals ruling that a plan can require participants to sue for denied benefits in a federal court chosen by the plan, despite the fact that federal law gives participants a choice of several venues in […]