In most cases, denials of ERISA plan benefits by administrators who have been granted discretionary authority to interpret and apply the plan are reviewed...
In most cases, denials of ERISA plan benefits by administrators who have been granted discretionary authority to interpret and apply the plan are reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard, and may only be reversed if the denial was arbitrary and capricious. Such deference, however, is not without limits, and there are circumstances in which courts will instead engage in a de novo review. That is what happened in Rombach v. Plumbers Local Union No. 27 Pension Fund, No. 24-2482, 2025 WL 3110791 (3d Cir. Nov. 6, 2025), where the Third Circuit held that a multiemployer pension plan's suspension of a participant's early-retirement benefits was subject to de novo review because the plan failed to adequately explain the basis for denial in its letter denying the participant's appeal.
Rombach concerned a claim for pension benefits from the Plumbers Local Union No. 27 Pension Fund. Participants were eligible to receive early-retirement benefits upon reaching age 57, completing ten years of service, and ceasing covered employment. The plan required benefits to be suspended if the participant subsequently became re-employed in the plumbing and pipefitting industry, which was defined in the plan to mean employment in a "trade or craft" utilized in the industry in which the participant was employed at the time his benefits...
Social media posts in Muslim-majority Malaysia have targeted an ethnically Chinese lawmaker with a fabricated headline claiming she backed halal certification for pork, which is forbidden in Islam....