Practice Areas & Industries: Jones Day

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Litigating ERISA cases is different. These cases often involve unique investments, varying legal standards and discovery procedures that change based upon the type of claim presented. Jones Day's ERISA litigation team only works on ERISA cases. Understanding ERISA's complexities and exploiting ERISA's nuances are crucial to our clients' success. Using our ERISA team's vast experience also saves our clients time and money.

ERISA cases are also often complicated by their intersection with other statutes, such as the Securities and Exchange Act, the federal Bankruptcy Code, state insurance laws and the Internal Revenue Code, to name a few. No one does a better job than our ERISA litigators in breaking down these complicated disputes into discrete, understandable issues and making it easy for a court to rule in our clients' favor.

Jones Day's nationally recognized ERISA litigators have a rich history of successfully representing employee benefit plans, trustees and fiduciaries in every type of employee benefit controversy imaginable. Clients who find themselves in court are provided with prompt, responsive, and highly practical employee benefits advice. Jones Day's ERISA litigators regularly act as lead counsel in complex, multimillion-dollar employee benefit disputes that often involve thousands of plan participants.

Our lawyers have successfully represented clients in numerous nationwide class actions, fiduciary breach and prohibited transaction claims, disputes about plan benefits, and enforcement actions initiated by the Department of Labor, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, or other governmental agencies. Our recent successful client representations include:

• 401(k) employer stock price-drop class action. Spivey v. Southern Company, 427 F. Supp. 2d 1144 (N.D. Ga. 2006) (class action). Summary judgment granted to Southern Company. Named class representative's multimillion dollar "stock drop" fiduciary breach lawsuit completely dismissed because the plaintiff failed to exhaust the 401(k) plan's claim review procedure before filing suit.
• Pension plan design controversies (vindication on appeal of IBM's decision changing its defined benefit pension plan to a cash balance formula). Cooper v. IBM, 457 F.3d 636 (7th Cir. 2006).
• Retiree medical plan class action claims. Chapman v. ACF Industries, LLC, 430 F. Supp. 2d 570 (S.D. W.Va. 2006) (class action). Defeated claim that retiree medical benefits were unchangeable under ERISA and the LMRA.
• Benefit entitlement. Lewis v. Saint Mary's HealthFirst, 402 F. Supp. 2d 1182 (D. Nev. 2005). Successfully defended HMO in case where an injured participant alleged the HMO abused its discretion by denying an ERISA claim for health plan benefits based on the plan's exclusion of coverage for injuries sustained while operating a device under the influence of alcohol.
• Medical plan reimbursement disputes. Admin. Cmtee. of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Associates Health Plan v. Gamboa, 479 F.3d 538 (8th Cir. 2007). Health plan equitable reimbursement claim vindicated on appeal.
• Public pension plan "vested rights" controversies. City of Eugene v. State Public Employees Retirement Board, 339 Or. 113 (2005). Negotiated "win-win" settlement with public employers in $2 billion pension contribution dispute and then prevailed in defending it from union attack before the Oregon Supreme Court.
• Denial of class certification. Ogden v. Americredit Corp., 225 F.R.D. 529 (N.D. Tex. 2005) (class action). Motion to deny class certification granted in "stock drop" case by showing the putative class representative did not meet the "adequacy" standards of Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(4).
• Class action severance plan disputes. Braden v. LSI Logic Corp., 340 F. Supp. 2d 1066 (N.D. Cal. 2004) (class action). Summary judgment granted in a case establishing the right of an ERISA-regulated severance plan to contain a benefit formula offsetting, dollar for dollar, payments made under the WARN Act.
• ERISA preemption of state law. Cisco Systems, Inc. v. California WCAB, 34 F. App'x. 379 (9th Cir. 2002). Established rule that ERISA prevents California's Workers' Compensation Appeals Board from requiring the provision of "free" employee benefits during workers' compensation leave.
• Pension plan termination and partial termination altercations. Matz v. Household International Tax Reduction Incentive Plan, 265 F.3d 572 (7th Cir. 2001) (class action). Established new law more favorable to plan sponsors concerning partial retirement plan terminations.
• Breach of fiduciary duty and asset misappropriation claims. Cline v. TIMEC, 200 F.3d 1223 (9th Cir. 2000) (class action). Established new law favorable to plan sponsors concerning what constitutes ERISA plan assets.
• Long-term disability, COBRA, life insurance, and deprivation of employee benefit plan coverage disputes. Hopkins v. Seagate, 30 F.3d 104 (10th Cir. 1994). Victory at trial and affirmed on appeal finding employer did not interfere with plaintiff's rights to LTD plan coverage.

Contact(s)

James P. Baker
San Francisco
Tel: 1.415.626.3939