Seyfarth Shaw’s 2010 Workplace Class Action Litigation Report Featured in Planadvisor.com
“ERISA Class Actions Picked up in 2009”

Seyfarth Shaw’s 2010 Workplace Class Action Litigation Report was featured in the Planadvisor.com article, “ERISA Class Actions Picked up in 2009,” published January 12, 2010. The article discussed Seyfarth's sixth annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report, which analyzes class action and collective action court rulings of 2009 involving claims against employers in federal and state courts.

According to the article, the nation’s economic downturn has prompted plaintiffs’ lawyers to increase the pace of filing of class action lawsuits to recover 401(k) plan losses under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The article noted that the Report’s 2009 study of workplace class action settlements found that the monetary value of the top 10 private settlements of ERISA class actions worked out or paid last year was $499.5 million—down from $17.7 billion the year before. However, the Report indicated that the 2008 figure includes three large settlements of cases involving voluntary employees beneficiary association (VEBA) cases. That means 2009 ERISA class settlements were actually greater than the previous year, according to the report.