Thelen LLP

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Thelen LLP attorneys include some of the top ERISA specialists in the country. Our ERISA Litigation team has represented employers, plan service providers, fiduciaries, and other sophisticated financial and service providers for more than 30 years in state court, Federal District and Bankruptcy Courts, the Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. We understand that the emergence of ERISA class action attorneys, combined with well-publicized scandals in the mutual fund, insurance, energy and telecommunications industries have heightened the litigation risks for all benefit plan fiduciaries. Our team provides a comprehensive set of services that address the full range of risk management issues that plan sponsors and service providers may encounter in all phases of plan administration.

Our team includes senior attorneys who have worked at each of the major administrative agencies involved in ERISA matters: The Department of Labor (DOL), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Our relationships with the various regulatory agencies help us provide advice that is up-to-the-minute, and help us handle investigations and resolve administrative disputes with maximum efficiency and as advantageously as possible. We work closely with clients to minimize the possibility of legal challenges to their employee benefit plans. But when circumstances dictate, our attorneys apply their exceptional skills and broad experience in representing clients facing challenges or audits by the DOL, IRS, PBGC and SEC. We also represent clients subject to litigation on ERISA matters before Bankruptcy Courts, Federal District Courts, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Our litigators have extensive experience in cases before all levels of the judiciary and have prevailed in numerous ERISA cases before the Supreme Court, including the landmark ERISA remedies and preemption cases of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company v. Russell, and Pilot Life Insurance Company v. Dedeaux, and the preemption case of UNUM Life Insurance Company v. Ward. These ERISA decisions have reduced litigation risks facing employers and employee benefit plans. The decisions established broad federal preemption of state laws involving breach of contract and tort claims, including “bad faith” claims and punitive damages. They also narrowed the federal remedies available to plan participants, and established equitable remedies that exclude both tort recovery and extracontractual recovery remedies.

In addition, our firm’s litigators have secured several Federal Court of Appeals rulings that provide expanded protections for employer-sponsors and plan service providers. In Gelardi v. Pertec Computer Corporation, the Court ruled that ERISA bars suit against an employer-sponsor which does not act as a plan administrator. In Gibson v. Prudential Insurance Company of America, the Court ruled that ERISA bars suits for damages against non-fiduciary service providers. In Kanne v. Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, the Court ruled that ERISA preempts suits brought under a state insurance-claims regulation statute.

To learn more about Thelen's ERISA practice, please contact the following: