Washington, D.C., February 27, 2025 – The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) and coalition allies yesterday filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to uphold a previous decision issued by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee in Robert Watt, et al v. FedEx Corporation, et al (Watt). In their brief, the amici stressed that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) grants an employer the authority to design and administer benefit plans that reflect the needs of its workforce.
ERISA permits the use of actuarial assumptions to calculate the benefits due to participants and beneficiaries of defined benefit pension plans. Despite this longstanding principle of ERISA, the Appellants in Watt urged the court to rewrite ERISA and impose their own evolving standards to calculate these benefits.
“Since its passage more than 50 years ago, decisions about benefit and plan design have been left to those best equipped to make those determinations – the employer. That decision by Congress was purposeful. It’s the employer who knows how to design plans that attract and retain top-quality employees – not Congress and not the courts,” said Tom Christina, Executive Director of the ERIC Legal Center. “However, in Watt, the Court of Appeals is being asked to design the standards governing such offerings out of whole cloth. Rather than upending a half-century of legal precedent that respects the ability of employers to make these decisions, the court should maintain the principles of ERISA and affirm the ruling of the district court.”
In addition to ERIC, allied groups joining in the filing of the amicus brief include the American Benefits Council and the Committee on Investment of Employee Benefit Assets Inc. The amicus brief was prepared by Crowell & Moring LLP and is available here.
