On January 22nd, 2019, a federal district judge certified a class of at least 28,000 participants and beneficiaries of the Cornell University Retirement Plan, consisting of the Employees of the Endowed Colleges at Ithaca Plan and the Cornell University Tax Deferred Annuity Plan, in Cunningham et al. v. Cornell University et al., No. 1:16-cv-06525 (S.D.N.Y., […]
On January 22, 2019, the United States Secretary of Labor filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the plaintiff-appellants/ cross-appellees Ivan and Melissa Mitchell in the matter of Mitchell, et al. v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota, et al. Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota filed a cross-appeal in the matter […]
A federal district judge in Mississippi undertook the painstaking steps of collecting and documenting Reliance Standard’s long history of abusive claims practices in disability claims. The expansive decision of Nichols v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., No. 3:17-CV-42-CWR-FKB, 2018 WL 3213618 (S.D. Miss., June 29, 2018), contains hundreds of citations of cases where reviewing courts […]
Western Michigan University-Cooley Law Review has published an article authored by J.J. Conway, Esq. and Trever M. Sims analyzing the Wilkins v. Baptist Healthcare Systems decision and its impact on ERISA benefits dispute resolution within the Sixth Circuit. The article, published in WMU-Cooley Law Review’s Summer 2018 issue, serves in part as a 20-year retrospective […]
The typical scenario in a benefits claim works something like this: An employee becomes ill or injured. An employee takes a medical leave of absence. If the employer has sponsored a disability program, a claim for benefits is filed. If there is a short-term disability plan, that benefit program may or may not be ERISA-qualified. […]
The United States District Court for the District of Idaho has ruled that a medical provider, acting pursuant to a pretreatment authorization and assignment of rights, may appeal an adverse benefit determination on the patient’s behalf for purposes of exhaustion under ERISA. In Abdilnour v. Blue Cross of Idaho Health Service Inc., Case No. 17-00412 […]
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Everything we do is centered on effectively and promptly resolving our clients’ benefits disputes whether in the courtroom or at the bargaining table. We focus on successfully litigating and resolving employee benefit and contractual disputes involving private contracts of insurance and claims brought under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA.”)
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