Source: https://law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/author/paul-secunda/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 02:48:25+00:00

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(This is another post in our series, Looking Back at the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 Term.) This blog post is the third of three on labor and employment law cases by the United States Supreme Court in the last Term. This post focuses on two employee benefit law/ERISA cases: Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. First, a disclosure: Along with six other law professors, I co-wrote an Amicus Curiae brief in support of the Dudenhoeffer plaintiffs.
(This is another post in our series, Looking Back at the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 Term.) Last month I commenced a series of posts of the United States Supreme Court’s labor and employment law decisions last term by blogging on the Court’s decision in the First Amendment public employee free speech case of Lane v. Franks, No. 13-483 (June 19, 2014). In two separate blog posts, I will comment on two labor law Court decisions (NLRB v. Noel Canning and Harris v. Quinn) and two employee benefit/ERISA decisions (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer). This post discusses the labor law cases.
To begin, National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, 134 S. Ct. 2550 (June 26, 2014), is obviously much more than just an ordinary labor law case. Yes, it concerns the validity of decisions made by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) when it had a quorum based solely on presidential recess appointments from roughly January 2012 through August 2013. More specifically, on January 4, 2012, President Obama, faced with the prospect of another two-member Board (see below why this is a problem), used his constitutional recess appointment powers to make three intra-recess appointments. In an effort to prevent any intra-session appointments, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives refused to give its consent to the Democratic-controlled Senate to go into recess. See U.S. Const. Art. II, sec. 5 (“[n]either House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days . . . .”). In response, the Senate held very brief, pro forma sessions in which no business was conducted.
This has been a busy semester for the Labor and Employment Law Program at Marquette University Law School. In addition to the Speaker Series I wrote about yesterday, we are also honored to be hosting the Third Annual ERISA, Employee Benefits and Social Insurance National Conference (program at this link) on March 28, 2014 (this follows wonderful ERISA conferences at Washington University Law and Michigan Business the two previous years).
To say we have an embarrassment of riches does not quite capture the remarkable array of papers that are to be presented. When you add a terrific luncheon keynote speaker in the person of Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employee Benefit Security Administration Phyllis Borzi, the cool factor (even for ERISA) is off the charts.
Panels include papers on ERISA claim and plan issues, the Affordable Care Act and ERISA, the future of public pension plans and other non-ERISA pension plans here and abroad, bankruptcy issues surrounding pensions and other legacy costs, and emerging challenges for social insurance and pension programs.
I am excited to announce the kick-off of a new speaker series in labor and employment law, sponsored by the Labor and Employment Law Program at Marquette University Law School.
We are really starting the program off with a bang.
On March 17th, Sam Estreicher (NYU Law) will be debating yours truly on his new labor law reform proposal, “Easy In, Easy Out” (details about that proposal here). You can register here.
On March 27th, in conjunction with the Third Annual ERISA National Conference at Marquette, Assistant Secretary of Labor and head of the Employee Benefit Security Administration (EBSA) Phyllis Borzi will be speaking about the Affordable Care Act. You can register here.
Finally, on April 8th, Professor Takashi Araki, former Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Tokyo Law School and Visiting Professor this semester at Harvard Law School, will be coming to speak about contemporary topics in Japanese employment law. You can register here.
The Court unanimously held that Hartford’s Long Term Disability Plan’s requirement that any suit to recover benefits be filed within three years after “proof of loss” is due is enforceable. More specifically, “[a]bsent a controlling statute to the contrary, a participant and a plan may agree by contract to a particular limita­tions period, even one that starts to run before the cause of action accrues, as long as the period is reasonable.” Causes of action for benefits under ERISA do not start to accrue until a final internal appeal decision. Because Heimeshoff failed to file a claim for long-term disability ben­efits with Hartford within the contractual SOL period, the Court concluded her claim was rightfully denied by Hartford.
Ed Zelinsky (Cardozo) has an interesting post on his OUP blog discussing a possible compromise in the on-going dispute between for-profit religious corporations, like Hobby Lobby, and the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) contraceptive coverage mandate.
This entire controversy is unnecessary. The tax law contains devices for reconciling the religious concerns of employers like Hobby Lobby with the policy of expanding medical coverage: health savings accounts (HSAs) and health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). The current regulatory exemption from the contraception mandate should be amended to include for-profit employers and to exempt from the federal contraception mandate employers (both non-profit and profit-making) who maintain HSAs or HRAs for their respective employees. Compromise along these lines would respect the genuinely-held views of religious minorities while implementing the federal policy of broadening access to health care.
An HSA/HRA compromise would eliminate the complicity of religious employers in the provision of contraception methods to which they object while enabling such employers’ employees to obtain on a pre-tax basis any medicines or devices such employees want, including contraception to which their employers object. Employers’ payments into their employees’ HSAs and HRAs would be the equivalent of the cash wages paid to such employees, wages which the employees are free to spend as they choose.
OK, 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.
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.
Some 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.

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