In re Merchants' & Manufacturers' Exchange of New York

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• nothing in ERISA compels employee benefit plans to use the term “employee” in the same way it is used in the statute
• rejecting an interpretation of the plan that “would, in effect, mean that the Committee had broad discretion in defining the term ‘Employee,’ but no discretion in determining which Employees were eligible to participate in the plan”
• where the Seventh Circuit found the plaintiffs were not common law employees as they had signed individual agreements designating themselves as independent contractors for all purposes
• “Absent special circumstances such as fraud or bad faith, the [fiduciary’s] decision may not be deemed arbitrary and capricious so long as it is possible to offer a reasoned explanation, based on the evidence, for that decision.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).