Much ERISA Fun at the Supreme Court Today: Heimeshoff and Benefit SOL Accrual Issues

Supreme_CourtOK, hold onto your seats for some flat-out ERISA law excitement. This morning, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in Heimeshoff v. Hartford Life & Accidental Insurance Co. [Briefs at SCOTUSblog], concerning statute of limitation accrual issues for benefit claims under Section 502(a)(1)(B) of ERISA.

RossRunkel.com, as always, gets to the heart of the matter (which is really impressive when you consider it is ERISA after all):

Heimeshoff’s disability policy, administered by Hartford, says that a court suit for wrongful denial of benefits has to be filed within three years of when the claimant files a proof of loss with the plan administrator.

That can be tough, given the fact that it’s possible for the three-year period to begin to run before the claimant has gone through the administrative procedure that must be followed before bring a suit. I suppose it’s even possible in some cases that the three years would run out before the claimant got a final denial.

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SEC Issues Rule on CEO-to-Worker Pay Ratio Disclosures

money_bag_svgLast week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a rule requiring companies to disclose the CEO-to-worker pay ratio.  Despite objections by many corporations, the rule covers all employees including seasonal, international, and part-time workers.  The SEC provides companies the option of using the entire workforce or a representative sample in the calculation.

There will now be a 60-day comment period.  The SEC voted for the rule 3-2, with the two Republican Commissioners who voted against the proposal calling it a special interest provision and proclaiming “shame on the SEC.”

Proponents of the rule argue that it will give shareholders and other stakeholders a clear line of sight into human capital management and worker pay. 

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4th Cir: Liking on Facebook Is Protected First Amendment Activity

facebook likeSome of you may recall a case from Virginia in August of last year concerning whether, in a public sector First Amendment case involving political activities, liking someone or something on Facebook counted as protected First Amendment speech.  I said it most certainly did in the ABA Journal at the time, even though the district judge said it certainly did not.

Yesterday, the Fourth Circuit made the world right again by finding that liking a candidate’s campaign page on Facebook was in fact protected First Amendment speech.

Here is the link to the 4th Circuit’s decision (2-1) in Bland v. Roberts.  And here is the pertinent language from the Court’s opinion:

On the most basic level, clicking on the “like” button literally causes to be published the statement that the User “likes” something, which is itself a substantive statement. In the context of a political campaign’s Facebook page, the meaning that the user approves of the candidacy whose page is being liked is unmistakable. That a user may use a single mouse click to produce that message that he likes the page instead of typing the same message with several individual key strokes is of no constitutional significance.

Bill Herbert has written on these First Amendment issues involving social networking by public employees in Can’t Escape from the Memory:  Social Media and Public Sector Labor Law.  The article has now been published in North Kentucky Law Review as part of the  Law + Informatics Symposium on Labor and Employment Issues.  A shout out to Jon Garon, Director of the Law + Informatics Institute at NKU, for organizing this very worthwhile event.

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