Fiduciary Duty

Using the website of the administrator hired by Northrup Grumman to manage its pension plan, plaintiffs submitted requests for the administrator to tell them the monthly pension benefit they would receive if they retired on a certain date.  The administrator miscalculated the benefit because it used the requesters' wages during their second period of employment by Northrup Grumman rather than… Read More

The district court wrongly dismissed this suit under SLUSA because plaintiffs did not allege a claim cognizable under federal securities laws.  They claimed that the defendant broker had switched their accounts from commission-based to fee-based without first performing a suitability analysis to see whether plaintiffs, who were buy-and-hold investors, would benefit from the change in fee structure.  That omission was… Read More

One owed a fiduciary duty can choose his remedy against the fiduciary for breach of that duty.  If the one owed the duty sues at law, it may recover damages and must show that it was harmed.  If the one owed the duty sues in equity, however, it may recover disgorgement of the fiduciary's secret profits without showing it was… Read More

Code of Civil Procedure 1714.10, which requires prior court approval before filing a complaint charging an attorney with conspiring with his client in an attempt to contest or compromise a claim or dispute, can be invoked even if the complaint does not use the word conspiracy, so long as it alleges joint tortious action. Read More

Substantial evidence supported the findings that defendant trustees did not breach their fiduciary duties by failing to tell plaintiff about her subtrust and that plaintiff suffered no damage from her asserted ignorance of the subtrust.  Read More