ERISA: Fumbling the Limitations Period

Circuit courts, rather than developing a uniform federal common law rule applicable to all persons similarly situated, have instead chosen to use the very same state law that ERISA supposedly preempted. So Even more shocking is that the state law generally chosen is the same contract law rejected for determining whether the court should conduct the ERISA lawsuit by jury trial. This article aims to show that this approach utilized by the circuit courts is incorrect. Part II performs a cursory investigation of the circuit courts' decisions narrowed in scope to their limitations period for the informational penalty lawsuit, the benefits due lawsuit, the equitable remedy lawsuit to enforce plan provisions, the employer retaliatory discrimination lawsuit, and the delinquent employer contribution lawsuit. Then, Part III outlines the anomaly of using state statutes of limitations for ERISA lawsuits. Finally, Part IV demonstrates the reasoning that the circuit courts should have used to determine a uniform federal common law for the limitations period for all ERISA causes of action