In May 2024, Renaker Scott LLP and co-counsel Kantor & Kantor LLP received a victory from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Bafford v. Administrative Committee of the Northrop Grumman Pension Plan., No. 22-55634, ___ F.4th ___, 2024 WL 2067884 (9th Cir. May 9, 2024). In a second appeal in this case during the last three years, the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of the case, which will allow the case to proceed again in the district court.

This case was brought by participants in the Northrop Grumman Pension Plan, on behalf of themselves and a class of similarly situated individuals, against the plan administrator. Plaintiffs received grossly overstated pension statements for years, relied upon that information in planning for retirement, and then well after retiring were told that the benefits were miscalculated and their pensions would be drastically reduced. In the lawsuit, plaintiffs seek to redress the committee’s violations of ERISA’s disclosure requirements.

In this decision, the Ninth Circuit recognized the harm that occurs for employees planning for retirement when they receive inaccurate pension information. As the Ninth Circuit put it, “[u]nlike a participant who does not receive any pension benefit statement and therefore does not know their retirement benefit, a participant who receives a significantly inaccurate statement may be affirmatively misled into believing that their pension will be greater than it is and make inadvisable decisions as a result.”

You can read the Ninth Circuit’s decision here.

For more information about the Northrop pension litigation, please contact Teresa Renaker, teresa@renakerscott.com, or Kirsten Scott, kirsten@renakerscott.com.

Renaker Hasselman Scott, along with co-counsel Kantor & Kantor, filed suit on behalf of participants in the Motion Picture Industry Health Plan who were wrongfully dropped from their health insurance when the plan’s Board of Directors extended coronavirus relief to some, but not all, plan participants. The plan requires that participants work a certain number of hours in order to have health coverage. When the pandemic shut down the motion picture industry-wide, the Board of Directors voted to extend relief in the form of a 300-hour credit, health insurance premium waiver, and COBRA subsidy to some, but not all, plan participants. In doing so, the Board excluded plaintiffs Greg Endries and Dee Nichols, and others similarly situated, in violation of ERISA’s duty of loyalty, which requires plan fiduciaries to treat all participants fairly and to not arbitrarily favor one group over another.

Read the complaint here.

Read additional coverage here:

Variety article

Law360 article

Hollywood Reporter article

For more information, please email kirsten@renakerhasselman.com.user.s408.sureserver.com

In April 2019, Renaker Hasselman Scott succeeded in getting a public employer and CalPERS to recognize nearly fifteen years of CalPERS pension service credit for an employee who had been misclassified for years. Although our client had worked continuously for the county employer, under similar working conditions as co-workers who were classified as permanent employees, the county had misclassified him for years – first as an independent contractor, and then as a temporary employee.

Renaker Hasselman Scott LLP recently achieved a significant win for a client where a pension plan claimed that it overpaid his pension benefits for more than three years, through no fault of his own, and demanded that he refund the benefits. In July 2018, the court granted our client’s motion to dismiss, finding that the pension plan had waived its right to recoup the overpayment. Moon v. Board of Trustees of the PAMCAH-UA Local 675 Pension Fund, — F. Supp. 3d —, 2018 WL 3805917 (N. D. Cal. 2018).

Renaker Hasselman Scott LLP has received three victories in the past five months in disability pension cases before the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System (SFERS). In each of these cases, after an evidentiary hearing, the Administrative Law Judge determined that our client was entitled to disability pension benefits, which resulted in an award of past-due and prospective benefits.

On October 11, 2017, the California Supreme Court denied review of Irvin v. Contra Costa County Employees’ Retirement Association, et al., marking a final victory for Renaker Hasselman Scott LLP and our client, Marianne Irvin. This means the landmark June 30, 2017 decision from the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District in this case will stand, establishing new law for public employee retirement benefits under the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937 (“CERL”), which governs twenty county retirement systems in California.

Renaker Hasselman Scott LLP is pleased that as a result of the Irvin decision, not only will Ms. Irvin receive the survivor benefits to which she is entitled, but the rights of other surviving spouses of County Employees Retirement Association members have been clarified.

In March 2017, Renaker Hasselman Scott obtained victories for three separate clients whose employer-sponsored long-term disability benefits had been unfairly denied by insurance companies. We are very pleased that we were able to secure these benefits for our clients, who unfortunately are no longer able to work due to disabling conditions.

In October 2016, a client of Renaker Hasselman Scott LLP obtained service-connected disability retirement benefits from the Contra Costa County Employees’ Retirement Association (CCCERA), including five years of past-due benefits. The award came after a favorable decision from the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), and then a ruling by the CCCERA Retirement Board to adopt the favorable ALJ decision.

Renaker Hasselman Scott LLP is proud to announce that all three partners were selected to 2016 Northern California Super Lawyers lists in the employee benefits category. Teresa Renaker and Margo Hasselman Greenough were both selected to the 2016 Northern California Super Lawyers list, and Kirsten Scott was selected to the 2016 Northern California Rising Stars list. In addition, Teresa was named to the Northern California Top 50 Women Attorneys and Top 100 Attorneys. All three also were named to the Top Women Attorneys in Northern California list.

For Kirsten, this is the third straight year appearing on the Northern California Rising Stars list, and for Margo, this is the fourth straight year appearing on the Northern California Super Lawyers list, after four years on the Rising Stars list. Teresa has been named to Northern California Super Lawyers for the last ten years, to Top 50 Women Attorneys for nine straight years, and to Top 100 Attorneys for five years.

Super Lawyers uses a rigorous selection process based on independent research and peer evaluation by practice area. Only 5 percent of lawyers in a state are named to Super Lawyers each year, and only 2.5% of attorneys in the state are selected to the Rising Stars list each year.