Jerry Aldridge, et al. v. Regions Bank

Knoxville, Tennessee employment benefits law lawyer represented the Plaintiff on an ERISA claim.



The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974

(ERISA) imposes many fiduciary duties on those who manage the retirement plans that

employers set up for their employees. ERISA generally allows employees who participate in

these plans to pursue breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims against these plan administrators. But the

law exempts retirement plans designed for high-level managers from its fiduciary-duty

requirements. It also directs employers to keep these so-called "top hat” plans unfunded, so

participating managers risk losing their benefits to an employer's creditors if the employer

becomes insolvent. This risk materialized for former managers of Ruby Tuesday, Inc., when the

company filed for bankruptcy. After losing their benefits, these managers sued Regions Bank—

the bank that had administered their top-hat plans. Unable to bring federal fiduciary-duty claims

under ERISA, the managers instead turned to state law. They asserted that Regions had

breached state-law fiduciary, trust, contract, and tort duties. Alternatively, the managers sought

to obtain their lost benefits from Regions under an ERISA provision that allows them to recover

only equitable (not legal) relief. These claims require us to ask both a preemption question and a

remedies question under ERISA.

Affirmed