Church Plan Litigation Headed for a Standoff

In spring 2013, a nationwide wave of class action lawsuits were filed against five large hospital systems claiming affiliation with the Catholic Church. The claims were all the same: The defined benefit pension plans sponsored by the hospitals were not eligible for the church plan exemption under ERISA. During the last year, we have had substantive decisions in three of the cases on what the scope of the church plan exemption should be. In this week’s MarketBeat, Thomas E. Clark, Jr. discusses this litigation and what may happen next.