Fringe Benefit Group Fights Massive ERISA Class in Fifth Circuit

Fringe Benefit Group is once again fighting to undo the certification of a massive class of benefit plan participants, telling the Fifth Circuit that variations among thousands of plans and individual agreements prevent the case from being resolved on a class-wide basis.

The district court that certified the class relied on “generalizations about ERISA cases often being well-suited for class actions” and effectively created a “rule of automatic certification” for cases claiming fiduciary breach under the statute, Texas-based Fringe said in a brief filed Tuesday.

“Plaintiffs seek to invalidate independent decisions by thousands of different employers memorialized in separate agreements ...