Yale Employees Get Federal Backing in Retirement Plan Fee Appeal

Yale University workers appealing their jury trial loss in a class action over retirement plan fees received support from the Labor Department, which urged the Second Circuit to use a more lenient standard for showing losses under ERISA.

The department supports the more plaintiff-friendly “would-have” standard, which asks whether a prudent retirement plan fiduciary would have made the same decisions as the defendant. The jury verdict favoring Yale incorrectly relied on a stricter “could-have” standard, which allows defendants to escape liability if a prudent fiduciary could have made the same choices, the department said in a brief filed Thursday.

The ...