Latest ERISA Complaint Targets Marmon Holdings

A new set of plaintiffs represented by the law firm Capozzi Adler has filed an Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

The lawsuit closely resembles many others that have been filed by proposed classes of plaintiffs represented by attorneys with Capozzi Adler. The plaintiffs in this case are participants and beneficiaries of a defined contribution retirement plan offered by Marmon Holdings Inc., which is named as the defendant in the case alongside the company’s board of directors and several committees allegedly tasked with operating the retirement plan in question.

The plaintiffs allege their DC plan fiduciaries breached the duties they owed to participants by failing to review the plan’s investment portfolio objectively, adequately and with due care to ensure that each investment option was prudent in terms of cost. The suit also argues the defendants imprudently maintained certain funds in the plan despite the availability of identical or similar investment options with lower costs and/or better performance histories. Finally, the lawsuit claims the defendants have failed to control the plan’s administrative and recordkeeping costs.

Plaintiffs represented by Capozzi Adler have met with mixed success in pursuing these claims. For example, in June, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri ruled in favor of the defendants in a nearly identical lawsuit filed against the Olin Corp. That ruling pointed out that, when considering a motion to dismiss, a court must “liberally construe a complaint in favor of the plaintiff.” However, if a claim fails to allege one of the elements necessary to recover on a legal theory, the court in question must dismiss that claim for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

“Threadbare recitals of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice,” the Olin Corp ruling stated. “Although courts must accept all factual allegations as true, they are not bound to take as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.”

The full text of the new complaint is available here.