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The U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut recently granted a motion to dismiss in favor of a retirement plan that provided a pre-retirement survivor annuity to an estranged spouse
This dispute stems from a common scenario: a 401(k) plan participant names his children from a prior marriage as his beneficiaries, remarries without changing his beneficiary designation, then dies, resulting in a predictable battle between the second wife and the deceased participant’s children over entitlement to the participant’s plan benefits
Although a deceased participant’s benefit in a 401(k) plan must be distributed to an ex-wife despite a prior waiver of her rights to the benefit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that the participant’s estate may subsequently sue the ex-wife for recovery of the distributions
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit weighed in on the validity of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), finding unconstitutional the denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts
