CommonSpirit Health Accused of Abusing Employee Retirement Plan

CommonSpirit Health and its retirement plan are being sued for allegedly violating federal law by applying plan assets to defray their costs before paying the plan’s administrative costs.

Plan participant Gregory Crowe alleges CommonSpirit—known as Catholic Health Initiatives—applied the plan assets from forfeited funds to the amount it owed the plan and passed the administrative expenses on to the plan participants, according to his proposed class action complaint filed July 18 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, plan assets must be held to provide benefits for plan participants ...