ERIC Joins Amicus Brief Urging Fifth Circuit to Impose Statute of Limitations

Washington, D.C., July 16, 2025 –  On Monday, July 14, 2025, The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to reverse a decision issued by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Guenther v. BP Accumulation Plan, et al. (Guenther). The brief focuses on the district court’s treatment of the statute of limitations under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

“A statute of limitations exists for a reason – to ensure that both parties have the certainty of knowing when a suit can and cannot be filed. However, the district court decision in Guenther ignores that purpose,” said Tom Christina, Executive Director of the ERIC Legal Center. “We urge the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to preserve ERISA’s statute of limitations by reversing the district court’s ruling.”

ERIC’s primary interest in Guenther stems from the district court’s ruling on the statute of limitations defense. ERISA outlines specific time limits for a plaintiff to bring an action for breach of fiduciary duty. Under the law, action must be brought within three years of discovery of the breach or six years from the date the breach occurred, whichever is shorter.

However, in Guenther, that timeline governing the statute of limitations was not met. The explanation for this extraordinary expansion of the six-year limitations period is that the district court linked the allegations dating back to 1989 with more recent events. BP bumped up the pensions of employees who joined the company following later mergers and acquisitions, during periods when interest rate credits under the cash balance formula were not as high as originally expected. Although BP bumped up the accruals of some of these employees, it did not bump up the accruals of the plaintiff group. For several years before the lawsuit, the plaintiffs’ group went through an ombudsman program to seek a similar bump up. Ultimately, in 2014, BP declined to follow the ombudsman’s recommendation in this regard. The district court ruled that the decision not to follow the ombudsman’s recommendation to improve plaintiffs’ retirement benefits was part of the breach of fiduciary duties, and that since that decision did not occur until 2014, a lawsuit filed in 2016 was timely.

Commenting on the action of the lower court, Christina added, “A decision to improve or not to improve retirement benefits is not a fiduciary decision under ERISA. In our view, it was an error to treat the fiduciary breach allegations as part and parcel of the distinct facts relating to the ombudsman’s recommendation.”

Read the full brief here.

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All media inquiries to The ERISA Industry Committee should be directed to media@eric.org.

About The ERISA Industry Committee
ERIC is a national advocacy organization that exclusively represents large employers that provide health, retirement, paid leave, and other benefits to their nationwide workforces. With member companies that are leaders in every sector of the economy, ERIC advocates on the federal, state, and local levels for policies that promote flexibility and uniformity in the administration of their employee benefit plans.