Emory University is the latest university being sued for allegedly allowing its employees to pay millions of dollars in excessive fees associated with its employee retirement plan.
The national firm, Schlichter, Bogard and Denton, based in St. Louis, filed a class action lawsuit Thursday on behalf of more than 20,000 Emory employees who are members of the plan.
The lawsuit alleges Emory, as the plan sponsor, failed to consider or offer cheaper investment alternatives for employees’ retirement savings that were available to the plan. Instead, Emory selected and kept a large number of duplicate investment options, even though some of those options had a history of poor performance.
“These university employees deserve the same right to build meaningful retirement assets as employees of for-profit companies,” said Jerry Schlichter, the attorney representing the employees in the lawsuit.
Emory responded to the suit in a statement Friday:
“Emory University and Emory Healthcare, Inc. value their faculty and staff and provide valuable benefits to them. Through our retirement programs, we offer access to a range of investment options to provide flexibility in meeting individual needs and retirement goals,” read the statement. “We are committed to these principles and operate our retirement programs in accord with federal law.”
The law firm has filed similar suits on behalf of employees at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, along with New York, Duke, Yale and Vanderbilt universities. The complaint, Geneva Henderson, et al, v. Emory University, et al, was filed in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Georgia.
Schlichter and his firm have been have filed more than 20 lawsuits during the past decade involving 401(K) retirement plans offered by employers.
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