Yale Wins Jury Trial in Class Suit Targeting Retirement Plan (1)

Yale University defeated a class action challenging its retirement plan after a federal jury in Connecticut ruled that the school mismanaged the plan but caused no losses to the plan participants.

Yale violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act by allowing the plan to pay excessive recordkeeping fees, but this failure caused no harm because the fiduciary of a well-managed retirement plan could have made the same decisions, the jury ruled.

The jury declined to find Yale liable on the participants’ other claims, which accused plan fiduciaries of failing to properly monitor plan investments, choosing funds in overly expensive ...