Andrew Holly

Jun 4, 2024 | law.com | Nicholas Pappas |Andrew Holly

Congress passed the Metal Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (the Parity Act) based upon its perception that employers who sponsor group health plans were improperly discriminating against mental health benefit coverage. Congress intended that the Parity Act would cause group health plans to cover treatments for mental health and substance abuse conditions in parity with medical/surgical treatments.

Aug 24, 2023 | jdsupra.com | Andrew Holly

ERISA’s notorious preemption clause is no more than a few lines of text. But it has a dramatic effect on the trillions of dollars flowing through ERISA pension and health plans in any given year. The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to define the scope and meaning of this clause numerous times since ERISA was passed in 1974. Most recently, in Rutledge v.

Aug 14, 2023 | jdsupra.com | Andrew Holly

In Wit v. United Behavioral Health, the Ninth Circuit recently rejected a lower court’s order certifying a class of participants in a dispute over behavioral health guidelines used to process claims for benefits. A California district court recently rejected Aetna’s motion to decertify an existing class based on that decision. In Hendricks v.

Aug 11, 2023 | jdsupra.com | Nicholas Bullard |Andrew Holly

ERISA’s prohibited transaction rules are notoriously complex and opaque. On August 4, 2023, the Ninth Circuit issued an important decision on those prohibited transaction rules that arguably conflicts with decision from the Third and Seventh Circuits, setting the stage for potential review by the U.S. Supreme Court. In this case, Bugielski v. AT&T Services, Inc., the plaintiffs raised prohibited transaction claims against fiduciaries of the AT&T retirement plan (the “Plan”).

Jul 27, 2023 | jdsupra.com | Andrew Holly

As we recently suggested, ERISA disputes over the fees and expenses charged to employer or union sponsored group health plans may well become the next wave in ERISA litigation. At minimum, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 creates new disclosure obligations on service providers of group health plans, and we know that some of the largest plaintiff-side firms in the country are investigating these sorts of claims.