Kent Mason Quoted in Plansponsor.com Article on the use of an Uncommon Procedural Rule in ERISA Fee Lawsuit
- Published Date: January 7, 2026
Davis & Harman Partner, Kent Mason, was featured in a Plansponsor.com article titled, “Federal Judge Invokes Rare Rule to Rein in ERISA Fee Lawsuits,” where he discussed the district court ruling in Dalton et. al. v. Freeman et. al., requiring a Federal Rules of Civil Procedure “Rule 7” reply by plaintiffs in the case.
The Plansponsor.com article details the district court judge’s ruling in Dalton, following the Supreme Court decision in Cunningham v. Cornell regarding pleading standards. In the Supreme Court decision, the Court called attention to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 7(a)(7) as a tool for courts to compel plaintiffs to file a reply to a defendant’s answer prior to initiating discovery proceedings.
In Dalton, the judge wrote that the structure of ERISA creates a procedural gap where plaintiffs can survive a motion to dismiss without addressing exemptions, possibly allowing weak cases to proceed into discovery. In the case, defendants offered a detailed affirmative defense asserting that the transaction in question qualified for a prohibited transaction exemption, and the judge stated that without a reply, there would be no mechanism to test whether plaintiffs could offer “specific, nonconclusory factual allegations” showing that the exemption did not apply.
Mason is featured in the article, calling the ruling in Dalton “a great, albeit small, development” in an area of law increasingly defined by high-volume litigation and settlement pressure, and the ruling could represent “a more rational approach” to prohibited transaction litigation. Mason stated that in many ERISA fee and prohibited-transaction cases, surviving a motion to dismiss is effectively the plaintiffs’ primary objective, due to the high cost of discovery and intense pressure to settle regardless of the merits of the claim.
A link to the full article can be found here.
