This Western District of North Carolina case provides a lesson in how mistakes can often lead to big problems in the plan administration arena. Thankfully, the court allowed the mistake to be rectified, but not without a great deal of…
This Western District of North Carolina case provides a lesson in how mistakes can often lead to big problems in the plan administration arena. Thankfully, the court allowed the mistake to be rectified, but not without a great deal of legal cost. This article at EBIA Weekly comments on the case.
The case involves the following unfortunate facts:
Mr. Neal was an employee of General Motors and a participant in the GM Plan, for which he designated his wife as the sole beneficiary. They were later divorced. Pursuant to the terms of their divorce, Mr. Neal and his former spouse signed a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO), which provided that the former spouse (as “Alternate Payee”),would receive 50% of Mr. Neal’s total vested account balance in the GM Plan.
The opinion states that, upon Fidelity’s receipt of the QDRO, “Fidelity failed to remove” the former spouse’s name as sole beneficiary under the GM Plan, which left intact the existing 1992 Beneficiary Form in Fidelity’s database. Accordingly, upon Mr. Neal’s death, Fidelity declared the former spouse to be the sole beneficiary and established a beneficiary account in her name and transferred all of the remaining GM Plan assets into that account. Subsequently, the former spouse requested and received a complete liquidation and withdrawal of the entire balance from that account. Fidelity later, after determining that the former spouse was not the correct beneficiary for a portion of the account, contacted her and later her estate, requesting that the incorrectly disbursed assets be returned.
In holding for GM and Fidelity, allowing recovery of the payment made in error to the former spouse, the court stated:
“Having determined that a federal common law claim of unjust enrichment is appropriate under ERISA when the facts at issue accord with the archetypal unjust enrichment scenario, and its application would further the plan contract while continuing to advance ERISA policy objectives, and found all of these elements to be present in the instant case, the court holds that it is appropriate to fill in the interstitial gaps of ERISA by allowing a federal common law remedy of unjust enrichment to lie.”
Comment: It is interesting to note that there is no mention of whether or not Mr. Neal failed to file a new beneficiary designation form with the Plan as was discussed in a case reported on by EBIA Weekly here which produced a different result. The North Carolina district court seems to focus on a failure by Fidelity to remove the former spouse as sole beneficiary under the Plan and emphasized this language which was contained in the QDRO Approval Guidelines (i.e. QDRO procedures):
“In the event that the [QDRO] contains language divesting the Alternate Payee of all right and interest in the Participant’s account under the Plan or waiving such right and interest (with the exception of the amount awarded under the Order), Fidelity will interpret this language as voiding any beneficiary designation completed by the Participant prior to the issuance of the Order to the extent that the Alternate Payee is named as beneficiary.”