Advisory Opinions

Whether the long-term disability program sponsored by the California Law Enforcement Association (CLEA), a non-profit mutual benefit corporation formed to provide a program of disability benefits to law enforcement personnel in the State of California, is an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) of Title I of ERISA. Whether CLEA is an employee organization under section 3(4) or an employer group or association under section 3(5).

Whether the TNCO, Inc. Health Benefits Plan (TNCO Plan), a single-employer plan that is self-funded with stop loss coverage, is an employee welfare benefits plan within the meaning of section 3(1) of Title I of ERISA. Whether the plan is subject to the exceptions in section 514(b).

Whether the Tremont Nail Company Health Benefits Plan, a single-employer plan that is self-funded with stop loss coverage, is an employee welfare benefits plan within the meaning of section 3(1) of Title I of ERISA. Whether the plan is subject to the exceptions in section 514(b)(6).

Whether a health benefit program (the ERM Program) offered by Employers Resource Management Company, Inc. (ERM), an employee leasing firm that markets certain services relating to employees of client companies, is a multiple employer welfare arrangement (MEWA) within the meaning of ERISA section 3(40).

Whether the Capital Metro Retirement and Savings Plan (formerly known as the Capital Metro 401(k) Plan) is a governmental plan within the meaning of section 3(32) of Title I of ERISA and, thus, excluded from ERISA Title I coverage by section 4(b)(1) of Title I of ERISA.

Whether the Toyota Motor Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc. Employer's Short Term Disability Plan and its Salary Continuation Plan, which pay benefits out of the employer’s general assets for absences due to certain medical reasons that equal or are a significant portion of, but do not exceed, the employee’s normal compensation, are payroll practices within the meaning of the Department of Labor regulations at 29 C.F.R. §2510.3-1(b) and therefore are not "employee welfare benefit plans" within the meaning of section 3(1) of Title I of ERISA.

Whether Prohibited Transaction Exemption 77-4 applies to transactions involving IRAs not covered by Title I of ERISA but which are subject to section 4975 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Whether the Armstrong Dependent Care Reimbursement Account, adopted by Armstrong World Industries, Inc. to provide its full-time and part-time employees with dependent care assistance by reimbursing dependent care services freely chosen by employees, is an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) of ERISA.

Whether a bank acting as an agent or trustee for employee benefit plans earning interest for their own accounts from the "float" when a benefit check is written to a participant until the check is presented for payment is prohibited under section 406(b)(3) of ERISA.

What are the appropriate actions to be taken by plan administrators under Title I of ERISA when presented with requests for recovery of mistaken primary payments made by Medicare under the Medicare Secondary Payer provisions. Whether medical providers or plan participants who have been paid for the same services by both Medicare and employee benefit plans, or who have otherwise misled plan fiduciaries, could be held liable as knowing participants in any fiduciary breach resulting from such actions.