Petition of the day
on Apr 16, 2018 at 5:30 pm
The petition of the day is:
Issue: Whether—when in order to create or assign rights to benefits under a state’s domestic relations laws to a person other than the designated beneficiary of a plan subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the court must “clearly specif[y]” the information required by 29 U.S.C. § 1056(d)(3)(C)—an order “clearly specifies” the required information when the information can be inferred from the documents as a whole, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit has held; when the information is provided in strict compliance with the statute’s requirements on the order’s face, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd and 10th Circuits have held; when the plan administrator has reason to know the required information, even if it appears nowhere in the order, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and two state high courts have held; or, if none of those standards apply, what is required for a domestic relations order to “clearly specif[y]” the information required by 29 U.S.C. § 1056(d)(3)(C).
