The Retirement Challenge: Will You Sink or Swim?

Lesson 21 Help from the Courts

If you are at retirement and your plan has substantially underperformed or endured greater than necessary costs, you have a right to be made whole through the litigation. A couple percent of additional costs and a few years of underperformance against the appropriate benchmarks may result in your pension benefit being less than half of what it should have been.

A recent Supreme Court case (LARUE v. DEWOLFF, BOBERG & ASSOCIATES, INC., ET AL.) established the right of an individual to sue plan sponsors of 401(k) plans for any breach of their fiduciary obligations. Citing ERISA Section 409:

“Any person who is a fiduciary with respect to a plan who breaches any of the responsibilities, obligations, or duties imposed ...