ERISA Pre-Emption Of Plan Participant Suits Against Actuaries

A recent decision by a federal court in Nevada deals with the question of ERISA pre-emption of state law claims against benefit plan service providers such as actuaries. In Parsons v. Bd. of Trs. of the Nev. Resort Ass'n - I.A.T.S.E. Local 702 Retirement Plan (D. Nev., 2013) , the court dismissed a state law negligence claim brought by a plan participant against the defendant who provided administrative services to the plan on ERISA pre-emption grounds:

"any state-law cause of action that duplicates, supplements, or supplants the ERISA civil enforcement remedy conflicts with the clear congressional intent to make the ERISA remedy exclusive and is therefore pre-empted." Id. Meaning, ERISA's preemptive provisions "defeat state-law causes of action on the merits."

Since ERISA does not provide for a cause of action by plan participants against non-fiduciary service providers, the pre-emption of state law claims means that participants have a very limited ability to directly sue plan actuaries for mistakes.

The court in Parsons acknowledged an earlier decision by the Ninth Circuit in Paulsen v. CNF Inc., 559 F.3d 1061 (9th Cir.2009) where the Court of Appeals allowed a participant claim against an...