Overview
Butzel's Employee Benefits group has highly experienced ERISA and employee benefits litigators. In addition to representing plan sponsors, fiduciaries and plan professionals during Department of Labor investigations, our litigators fashion pre-litigation strategies with an eye towards reducing litigation risk and minimizing costs in high-stakes litigation. Our litigators have handled individual and class action litigation across the country involving ERISA, and, where ERISA is inapplicable, state law:
- retiree health care benefit termination
- severance plan benefit denials
- medical disability benefit denials
- pension miscalculation claims
- anti-cutback rule violations
- discriminatory plan design
- cash balance plans and other hybrid plans
- fiduciary and co-fiduciary breaches
- executive compensation (including SERPs)
- interference with rights under ERISA and ERISA-governed plans
- excessive fees
- prohibited transactions
- non-compliance with ERISA disclosure requirements
- multiemployer plan trustee disputes
- multiemployer plan delinquent contribution and withdrawal liability disputes
- public sector plan trustee misconduct under state law
- ERISA and employee benefits appellate litigation
Our experienced ERISA and employee benefits litigators have also served as amicus counsel to national trade associations in the federal circuits and in the US Supreme Court and have been selected by insurers to defend benefits litigation.
Members of our group have published widely and teach Employee Benefits and ERISA Litigation at various law schools in Michigan, Alabama and Chicago and are frequent lecturers to state and national employee benefits organizations and in webinars. One member of the group is the author of two law school casebooks on executive compensation: Executive Compensation (2016) and Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation (2011).
