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Daniel Wesson

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Dan is an associate in Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation and focuses on ERISA Litigation. His litigation practice ranges from complex class actions to individual benefit claims concerning all types of plans, including 401(k) and 403(b) plans, defined benefit plans and health and welfare plans.  Dan represents large corporations, individuals, multiemployer pension plans, insurers, benefit plan committees and independent fiduciaries.  Dan also advises clients on plan administration, benefits restructuring, risk assessment and government investigations.

Dan has coauthored multiple articles in the Benefits Law Journal and is a frequent contributor to Proskauer’s Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Blog.

Dan earned his B.A. from Northeastern University and his J.D. from Georgetown University.  He was a member of the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy.  During his first summer at law school and the following semester, he served in the Division of Plan Benefits Security at the United States Department of Labor in Washington D.C., where he was a Gary S. Tell ERISA Litigation Fellow.

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In Holland v. Murray, No. 21-cv-567, 2023 WL 2645708 (D.D.C. Mar. 27, 2023), the court held that financial support provided by Congress to a multiemployer pension plan under the Bipartisan American Miners Act (“BAMA”) did not divest the plan of Article III standing to pursue the withdrawal liability it was owed.

In Central States v. Wingra, No. 21-cv-3684, 2023 WL 199360 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 17, 2023), the district court held that an employer expelled from a multiemployer pension plan may not owe withdrawal liability because the permanent cessation of the employer’s obligation to contribute was not voluntary.  While the court subsequently limited the decision as being for discovery purposes only (see Central States v. Wingra, No. 21-cv-3684 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 17, 2023)), the court allowed the employer to assert its challenge in the district court, rather than in arbitration, because the employer plausibly alleged that its expulsion from the plan was in bad faith.

A third district court has dismissed with prejudice a complaint alleging that defendants breached their fiduciary duties under ERISA by offering 401(k) plan participants the option to invest in BlackRock LifePath Index Target Date Funds (the “Funds”).  Beldock v. Microsoft, Case No. 22-cv-1082 (W.D. Wash. Apr. 24, 2023).  Although the outcome of the court’s ruling here is consistent with earlier decisions, the rationale underlying the Beldock decision arguably goes further than in prior rulings, thus providing additional food for thought.

On remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Seventh Circuit issued its opinion in Hughes v. Northwestern University, concluding that participants in two Northwestern 403(b) plans plausibly pled fiduciary-breach claims based on allegations of excessive recordkeeping and investment management fees, but dismissed their claim that too many investment options caused them “decision paralysis.”  In…