Public Justice Opposes ERISA Arbitration in Capital Group Appeal

Public interest litigation group Public Justice filed an amicus brief in an appeal over the 401(k) plan covering Capital Group Cos. employees, telling the Ninth Circuit the dispute was correctly kept in court despite the company’s arbitration request.

The Federal Arbitration Act—the law authorizing contractual agreements to resolve disputes through compulsory, binding arbitration—can’t be used to send Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuits into arbitration, because ERISA-governed benefit plans aren’t contracts, Public Justice said in an amicus brief. ERISA plans are “akin to trusts, not contracts,” and must be interpreted through that lens, Public Justice told the US ...