Case: Retirement Plans/Unpaid Benefits (S.D.N.Y.)

A federal district court in New York granted TBWA Wordwide Inc. summary judgment in an ERISA action by a former employee seeking $165,000 in unpaid benefits from a Chiat\Day employee profit sharing and 401(k) plan. The employee left Chiat\Day two years before it was purchased by TBWA and claimed that he didn’t receive any distributions from the plan. The court determined that because the employee sued TBWA only in its capacity as administrator and only under Section 502(a)(1) of ERISA, it can’t be held liable to pay plan benefits to the employee out of its own corporate assets. Also, the ...