Limiting Liability for Bank Trustees of Pension Plans
The mini-collapse of the stock market in 2001 spawned a number of class action lawsuits alleging that pension plan committees should have sold their plans' company stock holdings.  Many of these cases targeted not only the plan committees but the bank trustees of the plans, even though those trustees do not have the discretion to make investment decisions with respect to company stock.

There was a string of decisions refusing to dismiss the bank trustees from these cases, with many of the courts relying on an amicus curiae brief filed by the Department of Labor in the Enron litigation.  When one of our clients, a major trust institution with hundreds of plans that hold employer stock, was named in two such suits, we decided that our client could not afford to defend one case at a time.

With that in mind, the Groom litigators met with our regulatory attorneys to map out a strategy aimed at turning around the Department of Labor, whose brief had become a potent weapon for the plaintiffs' bar.  We put together an ad hoc coalition of financial institutions, and worked with the Department of Labor to issue guidance on the liability of directed trustees that has been influential in changing the litigation climate for our clients.

ERISA and California’s “Pay or Play” Healthcare Statute
We were selected after a nationwide competition involving more than a dozen firms to represent the California employer community in arguing that ERISA preempted California's "Pay or Play" healthcare statute.  The legislation required employers to pay a tax to the State to provide health coverage unless they complied with detailed mandated benefit rules, provided coverage to all dependents and covered at least 80% of the cost of each employee's coverage.  Studies estimated that the law would have cost employers in the state more than $5 billion.  The litigation became moot when the voters of California declined to approve the legislation in a referendum.

Florida MDL
Groom Law Group represented a major health insurance company in a series of class actions filed throughout the country against the seven largest health insurers in the United States.  The plaintiffs alleged that the insurance companies had misrepresented the basis on which the insurers decided claims and misrepresented the services that they provided, all in violation of ERISA.  The lawsuits sought to certify a class that would have included all persons in the United States who were covered under ERISA-governed health insurance plans.  The lawsuits were treated as complex, multi-district litigations and were combined for further proceedings in federal court in Miami, Florida.  After lengthy preliminary proceedings, which dismissed several of the plaintiffs' claims as without merit, the federal court refused to certify the nation-wide class that the plaintiffs proposed, and the suit was dismissed.

Drug Co-Payment Litigation
Groom Law Group represented a major high care insurer in a nationwide class action challenging the insurer's handling of prescription drug co-payments.  The plaintiffs in this million-member class action alleged that the insurer had allowed retail pharmacies to charge too much for certain low-cost prescription drugs.  The litigation involved several cutting-edge legal issues under ERISA such as the scope of relief available under ERISA's remedial provisions and whether a health insurer was a proper defendant in this kind of action.  After extensive proceedings, the plaintiffs agreed to settle the case.