Martinez’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 district ·

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 64 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In every case charging breach of ERISA fiduciary duty, then, the threshold question is not whether the actions of some person employed to provide services under a plan adversely affected a plan beneficiary’s interest, but whether that person was , acting as a fiduciary (that is, was performing a fiduciary function) when taking the action subject to complaint.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 54 F. Supp. 3d 629 - Perez v. Bruister · 309 F. Supp. 2d 861 - In Re Dynegy, Inc. ERISA Litigation

2. “With respect to an employer’s misrepresentations, we conclude, as have all of the circuits that have considered this issue, that an employer, if it chooses to communicate about the future of a participant’s plan benefits, has a fiduciary duty to refrain from misrepresentations ... when an employer chooses, in its discretion, to communicate about future plan benefits, it does so as an ERISA fiduciary. In speaking it is exercising discretionary authority in administration of the plan, a specifically enumerated fiduciary function under ERISA.... When an ERISA plan administrator speaks in its fiduciary capacity concerning a material aspect of the plan, it must speak truthfully.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 309 F. Supp. 2d 861 - In Re Dynegy, Inc. ERISA Litigation

3. “[W]e cannot agree that misrepresentations are actionable only after the company has seriously considered the plan change. Varity does not suggest that the obligation not to misrepresent materializes near the end of a progression, but rather implies that whenever an employer exercises a fiduciary function, it must speak truthfully. Nor do we find a safe harbor for predictions of the future. When an employer speaks to the future of a plan, employees are justified in concluding that it is backed by the authority of a plan administrator, and should therefore be entitled to trust in those representations.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In Re Enron Corp. Securities, Derivative & ERISA