Health and Welfare Benefits

The firm routinely represents companies in litigation and advises clients about the implications of changing retiree health and other welfare benefits. In addition, we have represented plan sponsors in legal challenges to spin-offs involving transfers of retiree welfare benefit obligations.

Representative matters include:

• Pegram v. Herdrich, 530 U.S. 211 (2000). In this landmark case, Sidley successfully argued that a health maintenance organization was not acting as a fiduciary under ERISA when it made treatment decisions.
• Sullivan v. Monsanto Co., 2010 WL 4702353 (E.D. La. 2010) We successfully defended a class action on behalf of Pharmacia Corporation and Pfizer Inc. brought by a putative class of retirees. The court agreed with Pfizer that a plan amendment that eliminated a favorable provision of a prior plan was valid and the plan committee’s interpretation of which documents constituted the plan was entitled to deference.