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Articles 1 - 30 of 38
Full-Text Articles in Law
Deducting Dobbs: The Tax Treatment Of Abortion-Related Travel Benefits, Samantha J. Prince
Deducting Dobbs: The Tax Treatment Of Abortion-Related Travel Benefits, Samantha J. Prince
Faculty Scholarly Works
In 2022, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey thereby giving the states carte blanche to do as they wish regarding abortion access. The decision created upheaval in the United States. However, it also provided the impetus for the creation of a new employee benefit, abortion-related travel benefits.
Thirteen states had anti-abortion trigger bans that were unenforceable until Dobbs. Several other states have passed legislation that criminalizes, or significantly restricts, abortion access. Women residing in these states will now endure greater financial, health, and temporal challenges to travel out of state …
Employee Turnover & Partial Plan Terminations, Samantha J. Prince
Employee Turnover & Partial Plan Terminations, Samantha J. Prince
Faculty Scholarly Works
Who would have expected that a pandemic would bring Congressional awareness of an oft-overlooked concept called Partial Plan Terminations? Congress codified a temporary (and now expired) partial termination safe harbor for qualified retirement plans in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021. This was necessary because qualified plans can experience a partial termination due to layoffs resulting from an economic downturn. The pandemic created such an upheaval for many businesses that without such relief, an overwhelming number of plans would have partially terminated. However, even with businesses reopening, the economy continues to be in flux, and this can portend more employee turnover. …
Reforming Pensions While Retaining Shareholder Voice, David H. Webber
Reforming Pensions While Retaining Shareholder Voice, David H. Webber
Faculty Scholarship
Public pension and labor union funds have been the driving force in diversified shareholder activism. They have also fended off attacks on jobs and proactively created jobs for fund contributors. These funds currently represent almost $4 trillion in assets over which workers have substantial control. That worker control - and the collective nature of defined benefit pension plans - is the necessary precondition for their shareholder activism. Both worker control and collective investment are directly threatened by the rise of defined contribution funds, particularly by well-funded efforts to promote the 401(k) in the public sector, the last bastion of the …
Modernizing Disability Income For Cancer Survivors, Ann C. Hodges
Modernizing Disability Income For Cancer Survivors, Ann C. Hodges
Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal
The medical progress in cancer treatment is worthy of celebration, as survivors of many cancers are living longer. This good news, however, comes with challenges for those survivors. Empirical evidence from researchers at cancer centers demonstrates the devastating impact that cancer has on employment, resulting in serious financial stress for survivors and their families. My previous research used this empirical data to recommend changes in employment laws to meet the need of survivors to maintain employment. This article builds on the prior research by using the empirical evidence of the employment effects of cancer to recommend changes in the disability …
Modernizing Disability Income For Cancer Survivors, Ann C. Hodges
Modernizing Disability Income For Cancer Survivors, Ann C. Hodges
Law Faculty Publications
The medical progress in cancer treatment is worthy of celebration, as survivors of many cancers are living longer. This good news, however, comes with challenges for those survivors. Empirical evidence from researchers at cancer centers demonstrates the devastating impact that cancer has on employment, resulting in serious financial stress for survivors and their families. My previous research used this empirical data to recommend changes in employment laws to meet the need of survivors to maintain employment. This article builds on the prior research by using the empirical evidence of the employment effects of cancer to recommend changes in the disability …
Regulating Employment-Based Anything, Brendan S. Maher
Regulating Employment-Based Anything, Brendan S. Maher
Faculty Scholarship
Benefit regulation has been called “the most consequential subject to which no one pays enough attention.” It exhausts judges, intimidates legislators, and scares off theorists. That need not be so. Reality is less complicated than advertised.
Governments often consider intervention if markets fail to make some socially desirable Good X — such as education, health care, home mortgages, or pensions, for example — sufficiently available. One obvious fix is for the government to provide the good itself. A less obvious intervention is for the government to regulate employment-based (EB) arrangements that provide Good X as a benefit to employees and …
After Tackett: Incomplete Contracts For Post-Employment Healthcare, Maria O'Brien
After Tackett: Incomplete Contracts For Post-Employment Healthcare, Maria O'Brien
Faculty Scholarship
This paper examines the recent U.S. Supreme Court retiree health care decision in Tackett v. M & G Polymers and focuses, in particular, on the ostensibly odd silence with respect to a critical contract term — whether the parties in fact agreed that these benefits were vested. Although the union in Tackett insisted these welfare benefits were clearly intended to vest and the employer now asserts they can be modified at any time, the collective bargaining agreement and supporting documents are ambiguous on this question. This paper examines how and why this “silence” persisted for so many decades and concludes …
A Failure To Supervise: How The Bureaucracy And The Courts Abandoned Their Intended Roles Under Erisa, Lauren R. Roth
A Failure To Supervise: How The Bureaucracy And The Courts Abandoned Their Intended Roles Under Erisa, Lauren R. Roth
Scholarly Works
This Article addresses how courts failed to adequately supervise employers administering pension plans before ERISA. Relying on a number of different legal theories — from an initial theory that pensions were gratuities offered by employers to the recognition that pension promises could create contractual rights — the courts repeatedly found ways to allow employers to promise much and provide little to workers expecting retirement security. In Section III, this Article addresses how Congress failed to create an effective structure for strong bureaucratic enforcement and the bureaucratic agencies with enforcement responsibilities failed to fulfill those functions. Finally, in Section IV, this …
A Limit On Downsizing: Varity Corp. V. Howe, James B. Shein
A Limit On Downsizing: Varity Corp. V. Howe, James B. Shein
Pepperdine Law Review
No abstract provided.
Defined (Yet Uncertain) Benefit Pension Plans In America, Travis Bayer
Defined (Yet Uncertain) Benefit Pension Plans In America, Travis Bayer
Chicago-Kent Law Review
Despite playing a central role in many public and private employees' retirements, defined benefit pension plans are woefully underfunded. Moreover, the combination of a Baby Boomer retirement bulge and a struggling economy are putting even more pressure on defined benefit plans. This Note examines relevant background information regarding defined benefit pension plans and demographic data of the Baby Boomer generation. This Note then explores how and to what extent states and private employers have created contractual obligations through defined benefit plans and addresses what happens when those contractual obligations are breached. Finally, this Note suggests that litigation cannot provide a …
Why Fight Fought?: A Missed Erisa Opportunity In The Ninth Circuit, Jill V. Cartwright
Why Fight Fought?: A Missed Erisa Opportunity In The Ninth Circuit, Jill V. Cartwright
Golden Gate University Law Review
This Note analyzes the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's standard of review in cases in which a conflicted administrator has denied benefits. Part I of this Note examines early standards of review prior to ERISA. Part II sets forth the split among the circuits in evaluating a conflicted administrator's denial of benefits and explains the Ninth Circuit's former standard. Part ill compares the Ninth Circuit's prior standard of finding such denials presumptively void with its recent holding in Abatie v. Alta Health & Life Insurance Company, in which the court effectively adopted a unique standard similar …
Employee Benefits - Friedrich V. Intel Corp., Cynthia O'Brien
Employee Benefits - Friedrich V. Intel Corp., Cynthia O'Brien
Golden Gate University Law Review
In Friedrich v. Intel Corporation, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the district court's holding that Intel, by denying an employee's claim for long term disability benefits, failed to comply with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA"). In applying a two-part test to determine whether Intel acted in apparent conflict with its obligations as a fiduciary to its employee, the Ninth Circuit held that the district court properly reviewed the claim for long term disability benefits de novo and did not err in finding that the employee was entitled to benefits under …
Pregnancy Benefits, Benign Sex Discrimination, And Justice: Why Does It Matter How We Ask The Questions?, Patricia Ann Boling
Pregnancy Benefits, Benign Sex Discrimination, And Justice: Why Does It Matter How We Ask The Questions?, Patricia Ann Boling
Golden Gate University Law Review
One purpose of this essay will be to respond to this argument by showing what sorts of considerations are pertinent and what conclusions are warranted if one considers the underlying issue in pregnancy benefits cases to be distributive justice, and then contrasting this with the considerations and judgments indicated by a more comprehensive view of sex discrimination. There are other reasons as well for maintaining the debate about the proper perspective on pregnancy disability issues. The Court's difficulties in convincingly justifying the refusal to equate pregnancy with sex-based discrimination in Geduldig and Gilbert, and in distinguishing the seniority and pregnancy …
Faqs About Employees And Employee Benefits, Pamela Perun
Faqs About Employees And Employee Benefits, Pamela Perun
Memos and Fact Sheets
This primer is an introduction to the basic laws of employee benefits. It is often assumed that there are legal impediments to employers providing benefits to phased retirees, part-time workers and the contingent workforce. From a benefits law perspective, this is really not true. By statute, self-employed workers are sometimes excluded from plans required to be employee-only but employers face few other prohibitions when designing their plans.
From an employer’s perspective, there are far more impediments to excluding these workers from their benefit plans than including them. Tax law provides incentives to employers who sponsor plans and to workers who …
Working Sick: Lessons Of Chronic Illness For Health Care Reform, Elizabeth Pendo
Working Sick: Lessons Of Chronic Illness For Health Care Reform, Elizabeth Pendo
All Faculty Scholarship
Although chronic illness is generally associated with the elderly or disabled, chronic conditions are widespread among working-age adults and pose significant challenges for employer-based health care plans. Indeed, a recent study found that the number of working-age adults with a major chronic condition has grown by 25 percent over the past 10 years, to a total of nearly 58 million in 2006. Chronic illness imposes significant costs on workers, employers, and the overall economy. This population accounts for three-quarters of all personal medical spending in the United States, and a Milken Institute study recently estimated that lost workdays and lower …
Don't Mourn --- Reorganize! An Introduction To The Next Wave Organizing Symposium Issue, Seth Harris
Don't Mourn --- Reorganize! An Introduction To The Next Wave Organizing Symposium Issue, Seth Harris
ExpressO
On January 27 and 28, 2005, New York Law School’s Labor & Employment Law Program, in cooperation with the Justice Action Center and the Institute for Information Law & Policy, presented the Next Wave Organizing Symposium. The Symposium brought together worker organizers, trade union officials, technologists, students, and scholars in law, industrial relations, economics, public policy, and other fields to tell the story of how, despite all of the forces arrayed against them, workers are organizing.
This article is the introduction to the Next Wave Organizing Symposium issue of the New York Law School Law Review. The purpose of the …
Money Talks: The Influence Of Economic Power On The Employment Laws And Policies In The United States And France, Carole A. Scott
Money Talks: The Influence Of Economic Power On The Employment Laws And Policies In The United States And France, Carole A. Scott
San Diego International Law Journal
Money talks. Money changes everything. There is nothing money cannot buy. These are all familiar phrases used to describe the desirable, and undesirable, effects of money. Money can also mean power, and more specifically, economic power. Indeed, economic power is becoming an increasingly important concept for a wide range of academic disciplines. For example, the concept of economic power has heavily influenced a new theory of international relations, namely globalization. Many globalization theorists argue that economic power is replacing military power in global politics. Other scholars contend that globalization is creating a new world order where economics are the central …
Erisa: No Further Inquiry Into Conflicted Plan Administrator Claim Denials, Don Bogan, Benjamin Fu
Erisa: No Further Inquiry Into Conflicted Plan Administrator Claim Denials, Don Bogan, Benjamin Fu
Oklahoma Law Review
No abstract provided.
Same Sex Marriage And Its Implications For Employee Benefits: Proceedings Of The 2005 Meeting Of The Association Of American Law Schools Sections On Employee Benefits, And Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity Issues, Maria O'Brien, Constance Hiatt, Shannon Minter, Teresa S. Collett
Same Sex Marriage And Its Implications For Employee Benefits: Proceedings Of The 2005 Meeting Of The Association Of American Law Schools Sections On Employee Benefits, And Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity Issues, Maria O'Brien, Constance Hiatt, Shannon Minter, Teresa S. Collett
Faculty Scholarship
Professor Maria O'Brien Hylton*: Welcome to this session on "Same Sex Marriage and its Implications for Employee Benefits." I'm Maria Hylton and I will introduce our speakers and moderate the program.
Our first speaker is Constance Hiatt, who is a partner with the Hanson Bridgett law firm here in San Francisco. She represents mostly large employers and large employee benefit plans, including the State of California's 401(k) and 457 plans as well as the University of California's benefits office. So, she has extensive experience in the employee benefits area and she came to us, to me really, through several …
The Limitations Of Retirement Plan Law, Peter M. Van Zante
The Limitations Of Retirement Plan Law, Peter M. Van Zante
ExpressO
It is widely believed that employers determine whether or not their employees receive retirement benefits and the type and amount of any benefits that are received. This belief is mistaken. While sponsorship of a retirement plan is a voluntary choice on the part of the sponsoring employer and the sponsoring employer directly controls the type of plan and the level of benefits provided, the employer's choices on these matters are controlled by its employees' preferences for different forms of compensation. An employer must spend the funds available for employee compensation so as to provide its employees with those forms of …
Recovering Retirement Security: An Analysis Of The Lockdown Claims Under Erisa, As Illustrated By The Enron Litigation, Margo Eberlein
Recovering Retirement Security: An Analysis Of The Lockdown Claims Under Erisa, As Illustrated By The Enron Litigation, Margo Eberlein
Chicago-Kent Law Review
This Note discusses Enron's lockdown of its 401(k) plan, the effect this decision had on Enron employees' pension funds, and the legal implications of this decision under the current statutory framework, ERISA. It describes the lawsuit filed by Enron employees in an attempt to recover some of the lost funds, as well as the probability of success for that action specifically and similar actions under ERISA in the future.
Commentary: Is It Time To Take The Broom And Really Clean House? A New Paradigm For Employee Benefits, Mary Ellen Signorille
Commentary: Is It Time To Take The Broom And Really Clean House? A New Paradigm For Employee Benefits, Mary Ellen Signorille
Chicago-Kent Law Review
No abstract provided.
The Changing World Of Employee Benefits, Maria O'Brien Hylton
The Changing World Of Employee Benefits, Maria O'Brien Hylton
Chicago-Kent Law Review
The employee benefits picture, at least for many plan participants and some plan sponsors, is a scary and bleak one. The number of workers with pension coverage is declining, health insurance rates are rising much faster than the rate of inflation, and the number of uninsured continues to rise as well. The decline in union density, the recent boost given by the U.S. Supreme Court to Any Willing Provider ("AWP") laws, and the deluge of recent benefits-related scandals are also all part of this landscape. This Article examines each of these issues, with a focus on reforms that would increase …
In Defense Of Paid Family Leave, Gillian Lester
In Defense Of Paid Family Leave, Gillian Lester
ExpressO
In this article I defend state provision of paid family leave. Such a program would allow workers to take compensated time off work to care for a newborn infant or ill family member. I normatively ground my claim in the argument that paid leave would allow women, who have historically performed a disproportionate share of family caregiving labor, to participate more fully in the paid workforce. This enhancement in labor force participation, I argue, would in turn increase women's independence and capacity to determine the conditions of their lives. In taking this position, I distinguish myself from those who would …
The Changing World Of Employee Benefits, Maria O'Brien
The Changing World Of Employee Benefits, Maria O'Brien
Faculty Scholarship
When I graduated from law school in 1985, there were no courses offered in employee benefits law. Nor, as near as I can recall, was ERISA ever discussed in any of the labor and employment classes I took. There was no mention in the introductory labor law course or in other classes about employment discrimination, union organizing, and employment arbitration. Now, in contrast, many law schools include a course on employee benefits and ERISA, and students hoping to work in the labor and employment area frequently find that ERISA work is plentiful, and traditional NLRA work is not. This, of …
Let Unions Be Unions: Allowing Grants Of Benefits During Representation Campaigns, Michael Hayes
Let Unions Be Unions: Allowing Grants Of Benefits During Representation Campaigns, Michael Hayes
All Faculty Scholarship
Unions exist to provide assistance to employees; this is their reason for being. Yet once a union begins a campaign to represent a group of employees, it is legally barred from extending tangible assistance to the workers. The National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB" or the "Board") and courts deem a union grant of benefits to employees during or prior to a representation campaign objectionable conduct that requires setting aside the results of the representation election and holding another election.
This article's proposal to open the door to unconditional union benefits during an organizing campaign will likely be controversial. Part of …
Maintaining Erisa's Balance: The Fundamental Business Decision V. The Affirmative Fiduciary Duty To Disclose Proposed Changes, Melissa Elaine Stover
Maintaining Erisa's Balance: The Fundamental Business Decision V. The Affirmative Fiduciary Duty To Disclose Proposed Changes, Melissa Elaine Stover
Washington and Lee Law Review
No abstract provided.
Employee Benefits Law: Foreword, Maria O'Brien
Employee Benefits Law: Foreword, Maria O'Brien
Faculty Scholarship
Over the past twenty or so years, the range of employee benefits offered by employers - both large and small - has expanded dramatically. The old (and relatively short) list of "fringes" typically included health insurance, a pension plan, paid holidays and group life insurance. There was, of course, some variation in this list, especially across industries. But, by and large, employers did not concern themselves in a formal way with "modern" benefits such as elder care, child care, legal assistance, flex time, and parental leaves. As a recent study by the Society for Human Resource Management' suggests, employers have …
The Employment Law Decisions Of The October 2000 Term Of The Supreme Court: A Review And Analysis, Ann C. Hodges, Douglas D. Scherer
The Employment Law Decisions Of The October 2000 Term Of The Supreme Court: A Review And Analysis, Ann C. Hodges, Douglas D. Scherer
Scholarly Works
During the October 2000 Term, the Supreme Court delivered major setbacks for employees in Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams,' which upheld mandatory and binding arbitration of federal and state employment discrimination claims through arbitration clauses forced upon employees as a condition of employment, and in Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett, which shielded state employers from federal court law suits brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act by victims of disability discrimination in employment. Employees escaped harm in Pollard v. E.I du Pont de Nemours & Co., in which the Court followed nearly unanimous circuit …
Erisa Preemption And The Case For A Federal Common Law Of Agency Governing Employer-Administrators, Joshua Fairfield
Erisa Preemption And The Case For A Federal Common Law Of Agency Governing Employer-Administrators, Joshua Fairfield
Articles by Maurer Faculty
No abstract provided.