Retirement Plan Sponsors Getting Sued Over Too Much Choice

Over the last several decades, “choice” has taken its place alongside Mother and apple pie as an unquestionable positive in any political or policy discussion in the U.S., whether you’re talking about grade schools, health plans, cable tv options, or investment vehicles in a retirement plan. Questions are now being raised about the latter in a forum where it can’t help but garner attention, the courts. A number of lawsuits that have been filed against companies and, more recently, educational institutions allege among other things that a blizzard of choices offered to retirees amounts to a shirking of duty by the plan’s sponsor. An article in Bloomberg BNA looks at the logic behind these cases, and the St. Louis plaintiff firm that has been leading the charge.