Fiduciary duty and litigation

Two signals from EBSA and the courts

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Plan sponsors got two signals from EBSA and the federal courts in the last month.

They point at the same question.

EBSA’s Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-01 said the agency will avoid second-guessing documented decisions. Barbich v. Northwestern said the same fiduciary theories that built 20 years of 401(k) menu litigation now apply to your medical plan design.

Three questions for your committee today:

What did we review when we picked the medical option lineup, and where is that record?

How does each vendor on the platform get paid, and who evaluated whether those incentives were managed?

What did we monitor between renewals, and what did we do when something changed?

If those answers don’t exist as a record your committee can produce on demand, the process is harder to defend.

ERISA does not reward the right outcome. It rewards the documented decision. The plan sponsors I see ready for that conversation tend to run their committee with a fiduciary calendar, a vendor compensation disclosure, and a monitoring log.

Which of those three is hardest for your committee to answer?

Sources

  • U.S. Department of Labor, EBSA Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2026-01
  • Barbich v. Northwestern

Originally posted on LinkedIn, where the discussion and source links live in the comments.

About the author

Chris Vanderwolk is Director of Compliance and Innovation at OneDigital | Kistler Tiffany Benefits General Agency, where he helps brokers and employers navigate the regulatory complexity of employee benefits. An ERISA attorney with more than 19 years in the benefits industry, he specializes in translating what the law actually requires into language people can use.

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